50 - COMPENDIUM OF BIOGRAPHY. voted his leisure for the remainder of his life to the revision of that and his school books. Dr. Webster was a member of the legislatures of both Connecticut and Massachusetts, was judge of one of the courts of the former state and was identified with nearly all the literary and scientific societies in the neighborhood of Amherst College. He died in New Haven, May 28, 1843. Among the more prominent works emanating from the fecund pen of Dr. Noah Webster besides those mentioned above are the following: " Sketches of American Policy ," "Winthrop's Journal," " A Brief History of Epidemics," " Rights of Neutral Nations in time of War," " A Philosophical and Practical Grammar of the English Language ," "Dissertations on the English Language ," "A Collection of Essays," " The Revolution in France ," " Political Progress of Britain," " Origin, History, and Connection of the Languages of Western Asia and of Europe ," and many others. WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON, the great anti-slavery pioneer and leader, was born in Newburyport, Massachusetts, December 12, 1804. He was apprenticed to the printing business, and in 1828 was induced to take charge of the " Journal of the Times " at Bennington, Vermont. While supporting John Quincy Adams for the presidency he took occasion in that paper to give expression of his views on slavery. These articles attracted notice, and a Quaker named Lundy, editor of the " Genius 0f Emancipation," published in Baltimore, induced him to enter a partnership with him for the conduct of his paper. It soon transpired that the views of the partners were not in harmony, Lundy favoring gradual emancipation, while Garrison favored immediate freedom. In 1850 Mr. Garrison was thrown into prison for libel, not being able to pay a fine of fifty dollars and costs. In his cell he wrote a number of poems which stirred the entire north, and a merchant, Mr. Tappan, of New York, paid his fine and liberated him, after seven weeks of confinement. He at once began a lecture tour of the northern cities, denouncing slavery as a sin before God, and demanding its immediate abolition in the name of religion and humanity. He opposed the colonization scheme of President Monroe and other leaders, and declared the right of every slave to immediate freedom. In 1831 he formed a partnership with Isaac Knapp, and began the publication of the " Liberator " at Boston. The " immediate abolition " idea began to gather power in the north, while the south became alarmed at the bold utterance of this journal. The mayor of Boston was besought by southern influence to interfere, and upon investigation, reported upon the insignificance, obscurity, and poverty of the editor and his staff, which report was widely published throughout the country. Rewards were offered by the southern states for his arrest and conviction. Later Garrison brought from England, where an emancipation measure had just been passed, some of the great advocates to work for the cause in this country. In 1835 a mob broke into his office, broke up a meeting of women, dragged Garrison through the street with a rope around his body, and his life was saved only by the interference of the police, who lodged him in jail. Garrison declined to sit in the World's Anti-Slavery convention at London in 1840, because that body had refused women representation. He opposed the formation of a political party with emancipation as its basis. COMPENDIUM OF BIOGRAPHY - 51 He favored a dissolution of the union, and declared the constitution which bound the free states to the slave states " A covenant with death and an agreement with hell." In 1843 he became president of the American Anti-Slavery society, which position he held until 1865, when slavery was no more. During all. this time the " Liberator " had continued to promulgate anti-slavery doctrines, but in 1865 Garrison resigned his position, and declared his work was completed. He died May 24, 1879. JOHN BROWN (" Brown of Ossawatomie"), a noted character in American history, was born at Torrington, Connecticut, May 9, 1800. In his childhood he removed to Ohio, where he learned the tanner's trade. He married there, and in 1855 settled in Kansas. He lived at the village of Ossawatomie in that state, and there began his fight against slavery. He advocated immediate emancipation, and held that the negroes of the slave states merely waited for a leader in an insurrection that would result in their freedom. He attended the convention called at Chatham, Canada, in 1859, and was the leading spirit in organizing a raid upon the United States arsenal at Harper's Ferry, Virginia. His plans were well laid, and carried 0ut in great secrecy. He rented a farm house near Harper's Ferry in the summer of 1859, and on October 16th of that year, with about twenty followers, he surprised and captured the United States arsenal, with all its supplies and arms. To his surprise, the negroes did not come to his support, and the next day he was attacked by the Virginia state militia, wounded and captured. He was tried in the courts of the state, convicted, and was hanged at Charlestown, December 2, 1859. The raid and its results had a tremendous effect, and hastened the culmination of the troubles between the north and south. The south had the advantage in discussing this event, claiming that the sentiment which inspired this act of violence was shared by the anti-slavery element of the country. EDWIN BOOTH had no peer upon the American stage during his long career as a star actor. He was the son of a famous actor, Junius Brutus Booth, and was born in 1833 at his father's home at Belair, neat Baltimore. At the age of sixteen he made his first appearance on the stage, at the Boston Museum, in a minor part in " Richard III." It was while playing in California in 1851 that an eminent critic called general attention to the young actor's unusual talent. However, it was not until 1863, at the great Shakspearian revival at the Winter Garden Theatre, New York, that the brilliancy of. his career began. His Hamlet held the boards for l00 nights in succession, and from that time forth Booth's reputation was established. In 1868 he opened his own theatre (Booth's Theater) in New York. Mr. Booth never succeeded as a manager, however, but as an actor he was undoubtedly the most popular man on the American stage, and perhaps the most eminent one in the world. In England he also won the greatest applause. Mr. Booth's work was confined mostly to Shakspearean roles, and his art was characterized by intellectual acuteness, fervor, and poetic feeling. His Hamlet, Richard II, Richard III, and Richelieu gave play to his greatest powers. In 1865, when his brother, John Wilkes Booth, enacted his great crime, Edwin Booth resolved to retire from the stage, but was pursuaded to reconsider that decision. The odium did not in any way attach to the 52 - COMPENDIUM OF BIOGRAPHY great actor, and his popularity was not affected. In all his work Mr. Booth clung closely to the legitimate and the traditional in drama, making no experiments, and offering little encouragement to new dramatic authors. His death occurred in New York, June 7, 1894. JOSEPH HOOKER, a noted American officer, was born at Hadley, Massachusetts, November 13, 1814. He graduated from West Point Military Academy in 1837, and was appointed lieutenant of artillery. He served in Florida in the Seminole war, and in garrison until the outbreak of the Mexican war. During the latter he saw service as a staff officer and was breveted captain, major and lieutenant-colonel for gallantry at Monterey, National Bridge and Chapultepec. Resigning his commission in 1833 he took up farming in California, which he followed until 1861. During this time he acted as superintendent of military roads in Oregon. At the outbreak of the Rebellion Hooker tendered his services to the government, and, May 17, 1861, was appointed brigadier-general of volunteers. He served in the defence of Washington and on the lower Potomac until his appointment to the command of a division in the Third Corps, in March, 1862. For gallant conduct at the siege of Yorktown and in the battles of Williamsburg, Fair Oaks, Frazier's Farm and Malvern Hill he was made major-general. At the head of his division he participated in the battles of Manassas and Chantilly. September 6, 1862, he was placed at the head of the First Corps, and in the battles of South Mountain and Antietam acted with his usual gallantry, being wounded in the latter engagement. On rejoining the army in November he was made brigadier-general in the regular army. On General Burnside attaining the command of the Army of the Potomac General Hooker was placed in command of the center grand division, consisting of the Second and Fifth Corps. At the head of these gallant men lie participated in the battle of Fredericksburg, December 13, 1862. In January, 1863, General Hooker assumed command of the Army of the Potomac, and in May following fought the battle of Chancellorsville. At the time of the invasion of Pennsylvania, owing to a dispute with General Halleck, Hooker requested to be relieved of his command, and June 28 was succeeded by George G. Meade. In September, 1863, General Hooker was given command of the Twentieth Corps and transferred to the Army of the Cumberland, and distinguished himself at the battles of Lookout Mountain, Missionary Ridge, and Ringgold. In the Atlanta campaign he saw almost daily service and merited his well-known nickname of " Fighting Joe." July 30, 1864, at his own request, he was relieved of his command. He subsequently was in command of several military departments in the north, and in October, 1868, was retired with the full rank of major-general. He died October 31, 1879. JAY GOULD, one of the greatest financiers that the world has ever produced, was born May 27, 1836, at Roxbury, Delaware county, New York. He spent his early years on his father's farm and at the age of fourteen entered Hobart Academy, New York, and kept books for the village blacksmith. He acquired a taste for mathematics and surveying and on leaving school found employment in making the surveyor's map of Ulster county. He surveyed very extensively in the state and accumulated five thousand dollars as the fruits of his labor. He COMPENDIUM OF BIOGRAPHY - 53 was then stricken with typhoid fever but recovered and made the acquaintance of one Zadock Pratt, who sent him into the western part of the state to locate a site for a tannery. He chose a fine hemlock grove, built a sawmill and blacksmith shop and was soon doing a large lumber business with Mr. Pratt. Mr. Gould soon secured control of the entire plant, which he sold out just before the panic of 1857 and in this year he became the largest stock holder in the Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania, bank. Shortly after the crisis he bought the bonds of the Rutland & Washington Railroad at ten cents on the dollar, and put all his money into railroad securities. For a long time he conducted this road which he consolidated with the Rensselaer & Saratoga Railroad. In 1859 he removed to New York and became a heavy investor in Erie Railroad stocks, entered that company and was president until its reorganization in 1872. In December, 1880, Mr. Gould was in control of ten thousand miles of railroad. In 1887 he purchased the controlling interest in the St. Louis & San Francisco Railroad Co., and was a joint owner with the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad Co. of the western portion of the Southern Pacific line. Other lines soon came under his control, aggregating thousand of miles, and he soon was recognized as one of the world's greatest railroad magnates. He continued to hold his place as one of the master financiers of the century until the time of his death which occurred December 2, 1892. THOMAS HART BENTON, a very prominent United States senator and statesman, was born at Hillsborough, North Carolina, March 14, 1782. He removed to Tennessee in early life, studied law, and began to practice at Nashville about 1810. During the war of 1812-1815 he served as colonel of a Tennessee regiment under General Andrew Jackson. In 1815 he removed to St. Louis, Missouri, and in 1820 was chosen United States senator for that state. Having been re-elected in 1826, he supported President Jackson in his opposition to the United States bank and advocated gold and silver currency, thus gaining the name of " Old Bullion," by which he was familiarly known. For many years he was the most prominent man in Missouri, and took rank among the greatest statesmen of his day. He was a member of the senate for thirty years and opposed the extreme states' rights policy of John C. Calhoun. In 1852 he was elected to the house of representatives in which he opposed the repeal of the Missouri compromise. He was op-, posed by a powerful party of States' Rights Democrats in Missouri, who defeated him as a. candidate for governor of that state in 1856. Colonel Benton published a considerable work in two volumes in 1854-56, entitled. Thirty Years' View, or a History of the. Working of the American Government for Thirty Years, 1820-50." He died April 10, 1858. STEPHEN ARNOLD DOUGLAS. —One of the most prominent figures in political circles during the intensely exciting days that preceded the war, and a leader of the Union branch of the Democratic party was the gentleman whose name heads this sketch. He was born at Brandon, Rutland coun ty, Vermont, April 23, 1813, of poor but respectable parentage. His father, a practicing physician, died while our subject was but an infant, and his mother, with two small children and but small means, could give him but the rudiments of an education. 54 - COMPENDIUM OF BIOGRAPHY. At the age of fifteen young Douglas engaged at work in the cabinet making business to raise funds to carry him through college. After a few years of labor he was enabled to pursue an academical course, first at Brandon, and later at Canandaigua, New York. In the latter place he remained until 1833, taking up the study of law. Before he was twenty, however, his funds running low, he abandoned all further attempts at education, determining to enter at once the battle of life. After some wanderings through the western states he took up his residence at Jacksonville, Illinois, where, after teaching school for three months, he was admitted to the bar, and opened an office in 1834. Within a year from that time, so rapidly had he risen in his profession, he was chosen attorney general of the state, and warmly espoused the principles of the Democratic party. He soon became one of the most popular orators in Illinois. It was at this time he gained the name of the " Little Giant." In 1835 he resigned the position of attorney general having been elected to the legislature. In 1841 he was chosen judge of the supreme court of Illinois which he resigned two years later to take a seat in congress. It was during this period of his life, while a member of the lower house, that he established his reputation and took the side of those who contended that congress had no constitutional right to restrict the extension of slavery further than the agreement between the states made in 1820. This, in spite of his being opposed to slavery, and only on grounds which he believed to be right, favored what was called the Missouri compromise. In 1847 Mr. Douglas was chosen United States senator for six years, and greatly distinguished himself. In 1852 he was re-elected to the same office. During this latter term, under his leadership, the " Kansas-Nebraska bill " was carried in the senate. In 1858, notwithstanding the fierce contest made by his able competitor for the position, Abraham Lincoln, and with the administration of Buchanan arrayed against him, Mr. Douglas was re-elected senator. After the trouble in the Charleston convention, when by the withdrawal of several state delegates without a nomination, the Union Democrats, in convention at Baltimore, in 1860, nominated Mr. Douglas as their candidate for presidency. The results of this election are well known and the great events of 1861 coming on, Mr. Douglas was spared their full development, dying at Chicago, Illinois, June 3, 1861, after a short illness. His last words to his children were, " to obey the laws and support the constitution of the United States." JAMES MONROE, fifth president of the United States, was born in Westmoreland county, Virginia, April 28, 1758. At the age of sixteen he entered William and Mary College, but two years later the Declaration of Independence having been adopted, he left college and hastened to New York where he joined Washington's army as a military cadet. At the battle of Trenton Monroe performed gallant service and received a wound in the shoulder, and was promoted to a captaincy. He acted as aide to Lord Sterling at the battles of Brandywine, Germantown and Monmouth. Washington then sent him to Virginia to raise a new regiment of which he was to be colonel. The exhausted condition of Virginia made this impossible, but he received his commission. He next entered the law office of Thomas Jefferson to study law, as there was no opening for him as an officer in the' army. In COMPENDIUM OF BIOGRAPHY - 55 1782 he was elected to the Virginia assembly, and the next year he was elected to the Continental congress. Realizing the inadequacy of the old articles of confederation, he advocated the calling of a convention to consider their revision, and introduced in congress a resolution empowering congress to regulate trade, lay import duties, etc. This resolution was referred to a committee, of which he was chairman, and the report led to the Annapolis convention, which called a general convention to meet at Philadelphia in 1787, when the constitution was drafted. Mr. Monroe began the practice of law at Fredericksburg, Virginia, and was soon after elected to the legislature, and appointed as one of the committee to pass upon the adoption of the constitution. He opposed it, as giving too much power to the central government. He was elected to the United States senate in 1789, where he allied himself with the Anti-Federalists or " Republicans," as they were sometimes called. Although his views as to neutrality between France and England were directly opposed to those of the president, yet Washington appointed him minister to France. His popularity in France was so great that the antagonism of England and her friends in this country brought about his recall. He then became governor of Virginia. He was sent as envoy to France in 1802; minister to England in I803; and envoy to Spain in 1805. The next year he returned to his estate in Virginia, and with an ample inheritance enjoyed a few years of repose. He was again called to be governor of Virginia, and was then appointed secretary of state by President Madison. The war with England soon resulted, and when the capital was burned by the British, Mr. Monroe became secretary of war also, and planned the measures for the defense of New Orleans. The treasury being exhausted and credit gone, he pledged his own estate, and thereby made possible the victory of Jackson at New Orleans. In 1817 Mr. Monroe became president of the United States, having been a candidate of the " Republican " party, which at that time had begun to be called the " Democratic" party. In 1820 he was re-elected, having two hundred and thirty-one electoral votes out of two hundred and thirty-two. His administration is known as the " Era of good-feeling," and party lines were almost wiped out. The slavery question began to assume importance at this time, and the Missouri Compromise was passed. The famous " Monroe Doctrine " originated in a great state paper of President Monroe upon the rumored interference of the Holy Alliance to prevent the formation of free republics in South America. President Monroe acknowledged their. independence, and promulgated his great " Doctrine," which has been held in reverence since. Mr. Monroe's death occurred in New York on July 4, 1831. THOMAS ALVA EDISON, the master wizard of electrical science and whose name is synonymous with the subjugation of electricity to the service of man, was born in 1847 at Milan, Ohio, and it was at Port Huron, Michigan, whither his parents had moved in 1854, that his self-education began--for he never attended school for more than two months. He eagerly devoured every book he could lay his hands on and is said to have read through an encyclopedia without 'missing a word. At thirteen he began his working life as a trainboy upon the Grand Trunk Railway between Port Huron and Detroit. Much of his time was now spent in Detroit, where he found increased facilities for reading at the public libraries. 56 - COMPENDIUM OF BIOGRAPHY. He was not content to be a newsboy, so he got together three hundred pounds of type and started the issue of the Grand Trunk Herald." It was only a small amateur weekly, printed on one side, the impression being made from the type by hand. Chemical research was his next undertaking and a laboratory was added to his movable publishing house, which, by the way, was an old freight car. One day, however, as he was experimenting with some phosphorus, it ignited and the irate conductor threw the young seeker after the truth, chemicals and all, from the train. His office and laboratory were then removed to the cellar of his father's house. As he grew to manhood he decided to become an operator. He won his opportunity by saving the life of a child, whose father was an old operator, and out of gratitude he gave Mr. Edison lessons in telegraphy. Five months later he was competent to fill a position in the railroad office at Port Huron. Hence he peregrinated to Stratford, Ontario, and thence successively to Adrian, Fort Wayne, Indianapolis, Cincinnati, Memphis, Louisville and Boston, gradually becoming an expert operator and gaining experience that enabled him to evolve many ingenious ideas for the improvement of telegraphic appliances. At Memphis he constructed an automatic repeater, which enabled Louisville and New Orleans to communicate direct, and received nothing more than the thanks of his employers. Mr. Edison came to New York in 1870 in search of an opening more suitable to his capabilities and ambitions. He happened to be in the office of the Laws Gold Reporting Company when one of the instruments got out of order, and even the inventor of the system could not make it work. Edison requested to be allowed to attempt the task, and in a few minutes he had overcome the difficulty and secured an advantageous engagement. For several years he had a contract with the Western Union, and the Gold Stock companies, whereby he received a large salary, besides a special price for all telegraphic improvements he could suggest. Later, as the of the Edison General Electric company, with its numerous subordinate organizations and connections all over the civilized world, he became several times a millionaire. Mr. Edison invented the phonograph and kinetograph which bear his name, the carbon telephone, the tasimeter, and the duplex and quadruplex systems of telegraphy. JAMES LONGSTREET, one of the most conspicuous of the Confederate generals during the Civil war, was born in 1820, in South Carolina, but was early taken by his parents to Alabama where he grew to man hood and received his early education. He graduated at the United States military academy in 1842, entering the army as lieutenant and spent a few years in the frontier service. When the Mexican war broke out he was called to the front and participated in all the principal battles of that war up to the storming of Chapultepec, where he received severe wounds. For gallant conduct at Contreras, Cherubusco, and Molino del Rey he received the brevets of captain and major. After the close of the Mexican war Longstreet served as adjutant and captain on frontier service in Texas until 1858 when he was transferred to the staff as paymaster with rank of major. In June, 1861, he resigned to join the Confederacy and immediately went to the front, commanding a brigade at Bull Run the following month. Promoted to be major-general in 1862 he thereafter bore a conspicuous. COMPENDIUM OF BIOGRAPHY - 57 part and rendered valuable service to the Confederate cause. He participated in many of the most severe battles of the Civil war including Bull Run (first and second), Seven Pines, Gaines' Mill, Fraziers Farm, Malvern Hill, Antietam, Frederickburg, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, Chickamauga, the Wilderness, Petersburg and most of the fighting about Richmond. When the war closed General Longstreet accepted the result, renewed his allegiance to the government, and thereafter labored earnestly to obliterate all traces of war and promote an era of good feeling between all sections of the country. He took up his residence in New Orleans, and took an active interest and prominent part in public affairs, served as surveyor of that port for several years; was commissioner of engineers for Louisiana, served four years as school commissioner, etc. In 1875 he was appointed supervisor of internal revenue and settled in Georgia. After that time he served four years as United States minister to Turkey, and also for a number of years was United States marshal of Georgia, besides having held other important official positions. JOHN RUTLEDGE, the second chief justice of the United States, was born at Charleston, South Carolina, in 1739. He was a son of John Rutledge, who had left Ireland for America about five years prior to the birth of our subject, and a brother of Edward Rutledge, a signer of the Declaration of Independence. John Rutledge received his legal education at the Temple, London, after which he returned to Charleston and soon won distinction at the bar. He was elected to the old Colonial congress in 1765 to protest against the " Stamp Act," and was a member of the South Carolina convention of 1774, and of the Continental congress of that and the succeeding year. In 1776 he was chairman of the committee that draughted the constitution of his state, and was president of the congress of that state. He was not pleased with the state constitution, however, and resigned. In 1779 he was again chosen governor of the state, and granted extraordinary powers, and he at once took the field to repel the British. He joined the army of General Gates in 1782, and the same year was elected to congress. He was a member of the constitutional convention which framed our present constitution. In 1789 he was appointed an associate justice of the first supreme court of the United States. He resigned to accept the position of chief-justice of his own state. Upon the resignation of Judge Jay, he was appointed chief-justice of the United States in 1795. The appointment was never confirmed, for, after presiding at one session, his mind became deranged, and he was succeeded by Judge Ellsworth. He died at Charleston, July 23, 1800. RALPH WALDO EMERSON was one of the most noted literary men of his time. He was born in Boston, Massachusetts, May 25, 1803. He had a minister for an ancestor, either on the paternal or maternal side, in every generation for eight generations back. His father, Rev. William Emerson, was a native of Concord, Massachusetts, born May 6, 1769, graduated at Harvard, in 1789, became a Unitarian minister; was a fine writer and one of the best orators of his day, died in 1811. Ralph Waldo Emerson was fitted for college at the public schools of Boston, and graduated at Harvard College in 1821, winning about this time several prizes for es- 58 - COMPENDIUM OF BIOGRAPHY. says. For five years he taught school in Boston; in 1826 was licensed to preach, and in 1829 was ordained as a colleague to Rev. Henry Ware of the Second Unitarian church in Boston. In 1832 he resigned, making the announcement in a sermon of his unwillingness longer to administer the rite of the Lord's Supper, after which he spent about a year in Europe. Upon his return he began his career as a lecturer before the Boston Mechanics Institute, his subject being "Water." His early lectures on " Italy" and " Relation of Man to the Globe " also attracted considerable attention; as did also his biographical lectures on Michael Angelo, Milton, Luther, George Fox, and Edmund Burke. After that time he gave many courses of lectures in Boston and became one of the best known lecturers in America. But very few men have rendered such continued service in this field. He lectured for forty successive seasons before the Salem, Massachusetts, Lyceum and also made repeated lecturing tours in this country and in England. In 1835 Mr. Emerson took up his residence at C0ncord, Massachusetts, where he continued to make his home until his death which occurred April 27, 1882. Mr. Emerson's literary work covered a wide scope. He wrote and published many works, essays and poems, which rank high among the works of American literary men. A few of the many which he produced are the following: " Nature;" "The Method of Nature;" " Man Thinking;" " The Dial ;" " Essays:" "Poems;" ''English Traits;" " The Conduct of Life;" " May-Day and other Poems " and " Society and Solitude;" besides many others. He was a prominent member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, of the American Philosophical Society, the Massachusetts Historical Society and other kindred associations. ALEXANDER T. STEWART, one of the famous merchant princes of New York, was born near the city of Belfast, Ireland, in 1803, and before he was eight years of age was left an orphan without any near relatives, save an aged grandfather. The grandfather being a pious Methodist wanted to make a minister of young Stewart, and accordingly put him in a school with that end in view and he graduated at Trinity College, in Dublin. When scarcely twenty years of age he came to New York. His first employment was that of a teacher, but accident soon made him a merchant. Entering into business relations with an experienced man of his acquaintance he soon found himself with the rent of a store on his hands and alone in a new enterprise. Mr. Stewart's business grew rapidly in all directions, but its founder had executive ability sufficient for any and all emergencies, and in time his house became one of the greatest mercantile establishments of modern times, and the name of Stewart famous. Mr. Stewart's death occurred April 10, 1876. JAMES FENIMORE COOPER. — In speaking of this noted American novelist, William Cullen Bryant said: " He wrote for mankind at large, hence it is that he has earned a fame wider than any American author of modern times. The creations of his genius shall survive through centuries to come, and only perish with our language." Another eminent writer (Prescott) said of Cooper: " In his productions every American must take an honest pride; for surely no one has succeeded like Cooper in the portraiture of American character, or has given such glowing and eminently truthful pictures of American scenery." James Fenimore Cooper was born Sep- COMPENDIUM OF BIOGRAPHY - 59 tember 15, 1789, at Burlington, New Jersey, and was a son of Judge William Cooper. About a year after the birth of our subject the family removed to Otsego county, New York, and founded the town called " Cooperstown." James Fenimore Cooper spent his childhood there and in 1802 entered Yale College, and four years later became a midshipman in the United States navy. In 1811 he was married, quit the seafaring life, and began devoting more or less time to literary pursuits. His first work was '' Precaution," a novel published in 1819, and three years later he produced " The Spy, a Tale of Neutral Ground," which met with great favor and was a universal success. This was followed by many other works, among which may be mentioned the following: " The Pioneers," "The Pilot," " Last of the Mohicans," " The Prairie," " The Red Rover," " The Manikins," " Homeward Bound," " Home as Found," " History of the United States Navy," " The Pathfinder," " Wing and Wing," "Afloat and Ashore," " The Chain-Bearer," " Oak-Openings," etc. J. Fenimore Cooper died at Cooperstown, New York, September 14, 1851. MARSHALL FIELD, one of the merchant princes of America, ranks among the most successful business men of the century. He was born in 1835 at Conway, Massachusetts. He spent his early life on a farm and secured a fair education in the common schools, supplementing this with a course at the Conway Academy. His natural bent ran in the channels of commercial life, and at the age of seventeen he was given a position in a store at Pittsfield, Massachusetts. Mr. Field remained there four years and removed to Chicago in 1856. He began his career in Chicago as a clerk in the wholesale dry goods house of Cooley, Wadsworth & Company, which later became Cooley, Farwell & Company, and still later John V. Farwell & Company. He remained with them four years and exhibited marked ability, in recognition of which he was given a partnership. In 1865 Mr. Field and L. Z. Leiter, who was also a member of the firm, withdrew and formed the firm of Field, Palmer & Leiter, the third partner being Potter Palmer, and they continued in business until 1867, when Mr. Palmer retired and the firm became Field, Leiter & Company. They ran under the latter name until 1881, when Mr. Leiter retired and the house has since continued under the name of Marshall Field & Company. The phenomenal success accredited to the house is largely due to the marked ability of Mr. Field, the house had become one of the foremost in the west, with an annual sale of $8,000,000 in 1870. The total loss of the firm during the Chicago fire was $3,500,000 of which $2,500,000 was recovered through the insurance companies. It rapidly recovered from the effects of this and to-day the annual sales amount to over $40,000,000. Mr. Field's real estate holdings amounted to $10,000,000. He was one of the heaviest subscribers to the Baptist University fund although he is a Presbyterian, and gave $1,000,000 for the endowment of the Field Columbian Museum—one of the greatest institutions of the kind in the world. EDGAR WILSON NYE, who won an immense popularity under the pen name of " Bill Nye," was one of the most eccentric humorists of his day. He was born August 25, 1850, at Shirley, Piscataqua county, Maine, "at a very early age " as he expresses it. He took an academic course in 60 - COMPENDIUM OF BIOGRAPHY River Falls, Wisconsin, from whence, after his graduation, he removed to Wyoming Territory. He studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1876. He began when quite young to contribute humorous sketches to the newspapers, became connected with various western journals and achieved a brilliant success as a humorist. Mr. Nye settled later in New York City where he devoted his time to writing funny articles for the big newspaper syndicates. He wrote for publication in book form the following : " Bill Nye and the Boomerang," " The Forty Liars," "Baled Hay," " Bill Nye's Blossom Rock," " Remarks," etc. His death occurred February 21, 1896, at Asheville, North Carolina. THOMAS DE WITT TALMAGE, one of the most celebrated American preachers, was born January 7, 1832, and was the youngest of twelve children. He made his preliminary studies at the grammar school in New Brunswick, New Jersey. At the age of eighteen he joined the church and entered the University of the City of New York, and graduated in May, 1853. The exercises were held in Niblo's Garden and his speech aroused the audience to a high pitch of enthusiasm. At the close of his college duties he imagined himself interested in the law and for three years studied law. Dr. Talmage then perceived his mistake and prepared himself for the ministry at the Reformed Dutch Church Theological Seminary at New Brunswick, New Jersey. Just after his ordination the young minister received two calls, one from Piermont, New York, and the other from Belleville, New Jersey. Dr. Talmage accepted the latter and for three years filled that charge, when he was called to Syracuse, New York. Here it was that his sermons first drew large crowds of people to his church, and from thence dates his popularity. Afterward he became the pastor of the Second Reformed Dutch church, of Philadelphia, remaining seven years, during which period he first entered upon the lecture platform and laid the foundation for his future reputation. At the end of this time he received three calls, one from Chicago, one from San Francisco, and one from the Central Presbyterian church of Brooklyn, which latter at that time consisted of only nineteen members with a congregation of about thirty-five. This church offered him a salary of seven thousand dollars and he accepted the call. He soon induced the trustees to sell the old church and build a new one. They did so and erected the Brooklyn Tabernacle, but it burned down shortly after it was finished. By prompt sympathy and general liberality a new church was built and formally opened in February, 1874. It contained seats for four thousand, six hundred and fifty, but if necessary seven thousand could be accommodated. In October, 1878, his salary was raised from seven thousand dollars to twelve thousand dollars, and in the autumn of 1889 the second tabernacle was destroyed by fire. A third tabernacle was built and it was formally dedicated on Easter Sunday, 1891. JOHN PHILIP SOUSA, conceded as being one of the greatest band leaders in the world, won his fame while leader of the United States Marine Band at Washington, District of Columbia. He was not originally a band player but was a violinist, and at the age of seventeen he was conductor of an opera company, a profession which he followed for several years, until he was offered the leadership of the Marine Band at Washington. The proposition was repugnant to him at first but he accepted the COMPENDIUM OF BIOGRAPHY - 61 offer and then ensued ten years of brilliant success with that organization. When he first took the Marine Band he began to gather the national airs of all the nations that have representatives in Washington, and compiled a comprehensive volume including nearly all the national songs of the different nations. He composed a number of marches, waltzes and two-steps, prominent among which are the " Washington Post," " Directorate," " King Cotton," "High School Cadets," " Belle of Chicago," "Liberty Bell March," " Manhattan Beach," " On Parade March," " Thunderer March," " Gladiator March," " El Capitan March," etc. He became a very extensive composer of this class of music. JOHN QUINCY ADAMS, sixth president of the United States, was born in Braintree, Massachusetts, July 11, 1767, the son of John Adams. At the age of eleven he was sent to school at Paris, and two years later to Leyden, where he entered that great university. He returned to the United States in 1785, and graduated from Harvard in 1788. He then studied law, and was admitted to the bar in 1791. His practice brought no income the first two years, but he won distinction in literary fields, and was appointed minister to The Hague in 1794. He married in 1797, and went as minister to Berlin the same year, serving until 1801, when Jefferson became president. He was elected to the senate in 1803 by the Federalists, but was condemned by that party for advocating the Embargo Act and other Anti-Federalist measures. He was appointed as professor of rhetoric at Harvard in 1805, and in 1809 was sent as minister to Russia. He assisted in negotiating the treaty of peace with England in 1814, and became minister to that power the next year. He served during Monroe's administration two terms as secretary of state, during which time party lines 'were obliterated, and in 1824 four candidates for president appeared, all of whom were identified to some extent with the new " Democratic" party. Mr. Adams received 84 electoral votes, Jackson 99, Crawford 41, and Clay 37. As no candidate had a majority of all votes, the election went to the house of representatives, which elected Mr. Adams. As Clay had thrown his influence to Mr. Adams, Clay became secretary of state, and this caused bitter feeling on the part of the Jackson Democrats, who were joined by Mr. Crawford and his following, and opposed every measure of the administration. In the election of 1828 Jackson was elected over Mr. Adams by a great majority. Mr. Adams entered the lower house of congress in 1830, elected from the district in which he was born and continued to represent it for seventeen years. He was known as " the old man eloquent," and his work in congress was independent of party. He opposed slavery extension and insisted upon presenting to congress, one at a time, the hundreds of petitions against the slave power. One of these petitions, presented in 1842, was signed by forty-five citizens of Massachusetts, and prayed congress for a peaceful dissolution of the Union. His enemies seized upon this as an opportunity to crush their powerful foe, and in a caucus meeting determined upon his expulsion from congress. Finding they would not be able to command enough votes for this, they decided upon a course that would bring equal disgrace. They formulated a resolution to the effect that while he merited expulsion, the house would, in great mercy, substitute its severest censure. When it was read in the house the old man, then in his seventy-fifth 62 - COMPENDIUM OF BIOGRAPHY. year, arose and demanded that the first paragraph of the Declaration of Independence be read as his defense. It embraced the famous sentence, " that whenever any form of government becomes destructive to those ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government, etc., etc." After eleven days of hard fighting his opponents were defeated. On February 21, 1848, he rose to address the speaker on the Oregon question, when he suddenly fell from a stroke of paralysis. He died, soon after in the rotunda of the capitol, where he had been conveyed by his colleagues. SUSAN B. ANTHONY was one of the most famous women of America. She was born at South Adams, Massachusetts, February 15, 1820, the daughter of a Quaker. She received a good education and became a school teacher, following that profession for fifteen years in New York. Beginning with about 1852 she became the active leader of the woman's rights movemept and won a wide reputation for her zeal and ability. She also distinguished herself for her zeal and eloquence in the temperance. and anti-slavery causes, and became a conspicuous figure during the war. After the close of the war she gave most of her labors to the cause of woman's suffrage. PHILIP D. ARMOUR, one of the most conspicuous figures in the mercantile history of America, was born May 16, 1832, on a farm at Stockbridge, Madison county, New York, and received his early education in the common schools of that county. He was apprenticed to a farmer and worked faithfully and well, being very ambitious and desiring to start out for himself. At the age of twenty he secured a release from his indentures and set out overland for the gold fields of California. After a great deal of hard work he accumulated a little money and then came east and settled in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He went into the grain receiving and warehouse business and was fairly successful, and later on he formed a partnership with John Plankinton in the pork packing line, the style of the firm being. Plankinton & Armour. Mr. Ar mour made his first great " deal " in selling. pork " short " on the New York market in the anticipation of the fall of the Confederacy, and Mr. Armour is said to have made through this deal a million dollars. He then established packing houses in Chicago and Kansas City, and in 1875 he removed to Chicago. He increased his business by adding to it the shipment of dressed beef to the European markets, and many other lines. of trade and manufacturing, and it rapidly assumed vast proportions, employing an army of men in different lines of the business. Mr. Armour successfully conducted a. great many speculative deals in pork and grain of immense proportions and also erected many large warehouses for the storage of grain. He became one of the representative business men of Chicago, where he became closely identified with all enterprises of a public nature, but his fame as a great business man extended to all parts of the world. He founded the "Armour Institute " at Chicago and also contributed largely to benevolent and charitable institutions. ROBERT FULTON.—Although Fulton is best known as the inventor of the first successful steamboat, yet his claims to distinction do not rest alone upon that, for he was an inventor along other lines, a painter and an author. He was born at Little Britain, Lancaster county, Pennsyl- COMPENDIUM OF BIOGRAPHY - 65 vania, in 1765, of Scotch-Irish ancestry. At the age of seventeen he removed to Philadelphia, and there and in New York engaged in miniature painting with success both from a pecuniary and artistic point of view. With the results of his labors he purchased a farm for the support of his mother. He went to London and studied under the great painter, Benjamin West, and all through life retained his fondness for art and gave evidence of much ability in that line. While in England he was brought in contact with the Duke of Bridgewater, the father of the English canal system; Lord Stanhope, an eminent mechanician, and James Watt, the inventor of the steam engine. Their influence turned his mind to its true field of labor, that of mechanical invention. Machines for flax spinning, marble sawing, rope making, and for removing earth from excavations, are among his earliest ventures. His " Treatise on the Improvement of Canal Navigation," issued in 1796, and a series of essays on canals were soon followed by an English patent for canal improvements. In 1797 he went to Paris, where he resided until 1806, and there invented a submarine torpedo boat for maritime defense, but which was rejected by the governments of France, England and the United States. In 1803 he offered to construct for the Emperor Napoleon a steamboat that would assist in carrying out the plan of invading Great Britain then meditated by that great captain. In pursuance he constructed his first steamboat on the Seine, but it did not prove a full success and the idea was abandoned by the French government. By the aid of Livingston, then United States minister to France, Fulton purchased, in 1806, an engine which he brought to this country. After studying the defects of his own and other attempts in this line he built and launched in 1807 the Clermont, the first successful steamboat. This craft only attained a speed of five miles an hour while going up North river. His first patent not fully covering his invention, Fulton was engaged in many law suits for infringement. He constructed many steamboats, ferryboats, etc., among-these being the United States steamer " Fulton the First," built in 1814, the first war steamer ever built. This craft never attained any great speed owing to some defects in construction and accidentally blew up in 1829. Fulton died in New York, February 21, 1815. SALMON PORTLAND CHASE, sixth chief-justice of the United States, and one of the most eminent of American jurists, was born in Cornish, New Hampshire, January 13, 1808. At the age of nine he was left in. poverty by the death of his father, but means were found to educate him. He was sent to his uncle, a bishop, who conducted an academy near Columbus, Ohio, and here young Chase worked on the farm and attended school. At the age of fifteen he returned to his native state and entered Dartmouth College, from which he graduated in 1826. He then went to Washington, and engaged in teaching school,. and studying law under the instruction of William. Wirt. He was licensed to practice in 1829, and went to Cincinnati, where he had a hard struggle for several years following. He had in the meantime prepared notes on the statutes of Ohio, which, when published, brought him into prominence locally. He was soon after appointed solicitor of the United States Bank. In 1837 he appeared as counsel for a fugitive slave woman, Matilda, and sought by all the powers of his learning and eloquence to prevent her owner 66 - COMPENDIUM OF BIOGRAPHY from reclaiming her. He acted in many other cases, and devolved the trite expression, "Slavery is sectional, freedom is national." He was employed to defend Van Zandt before the supreme court of the United States in 1846, which was one of the most noted cases connected with the great struggle against slavery. By this time Mr. Chase had become the recognized leader of that element known as " free-soilers." He was elected to the United States senate in 1849, and was chosen governor of Ohio in 1855 and re-elected in 1857. He was chosen to the United States senate from Ohio in 1861, but was made secretary of the treasury.by Lincoln and accepted. He inaugurated a financial system to replenish the exhausted treasury and meet the demands of the greatest war in history and at the same time to revive the industries of the country. One of the measures which afterward called for his judicial attention was the issuance of currency notes which were made a legal tender in payment of debts. When this question came before him as chief-justice of the United States he reversed his former action and declared the measure unconstitutional. The national banking system, by which all notes issued were to be based on funded government bonds of equal or greater amounts, had its direct origin with Mr. Chase. Mr. Chase resigned the treasury portfolio in 1864, and was appointed the same year as chief-justice of the United States supreme court. The great questions that came up before him at this crisis in the life of the nation were no less than those which confronted the first chief-justice at the formation of our government. Reconstruction, private, state and national interests, the constitutionality of the acts of congress passed in times of great excitement, the construction and interpretation to be placed upon the several amendments to the national constitution, —these were among the vital questions requiring prompt decision. He received a paralytic stroke in 1870, which impaired his health, though his mental powers were not affected. He continued to preside at the opening terms for two years following and died May 7, 1873. HARRIET ELIZABETH BEECHER STOWE, a celebrated American writer, was born June 14, 1812, at Litchfield, Connecticut. She was a daughter of Lyman Beecher and a sister of Henry Ward Beecher, two noted divines; was carefully educated, and taught school for several years at Hartford, Connecticut. In 1832 Miss Beecher married Professor Stowe, then of Lane Seminary, Cincinnati, Ohio, and afterwards at Bowdoin College and Andover Seminary. Mrs. Stowe published in 1849 " The Mayflower, or sketches of the descendants of the Pilgrims," and in 035 .commenced in the " National Era" of Washington, a serial story which was published separately in 1852 under the title of " Uncle Tom's Cabin." This book attained almost unparalleled success both at home and abroad, and within ten years it had been translated in almost every language of the civilized world. Mrs. Stowe published in 1853 a "Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin" in which the data that she used was published and its truthfulness was corroborated. In 1853 she accompanied her husband and brother to Europe, and on her return published " Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands" in 1854. Mrs. Stowe was for some time one of the editors of the " Atlantic Monthly" and the " Hearth and Home," for which she had written a number of articles. Among these, also published separately, are “Dred, a tale of the Great Dismal Swamp " ( later published under the title of " Nina COMPENDIUM OF BIOGRAPHY - 67 Gordon ") ; " The Minister's Wooing;" " The Pearl of Orr's Island;" "Agues of Sorrento;" "Oldtown Folks;" " My Wife and I;" "Bible Heroines," and "A Dog's Mission." Mrs. Stowe's death occurred July I, 1896, at Hartford, Connecticut. THOMAS JONATHAN JACKSON, better known as " Stonewall " Jackson, was one of the most noted of the Confederate generals of the Civil war. He was a soldier by nature, an incomparable lieutenant, sure to execute any operation entrusted to him with marvellous precision, judgment and courage, and all his individual campaigns and combats bore the stamp of a masterly capacity for war. He was born January 21, 1824, at Clarksburg, Harrison county, West Virginia. He was early in life imbued with the desire to be a soldier and it is said walked from the mountains of Virginia to Washington, secured the aid of his congressman, and was appointed cadet at the United States Military Academy at West PoiNT from which he was graduated in 1846. Attached to the army as brevet second lieutenant of the First Artillery, his first service was as a subaltern with Magruder's battery of light artillery in the Mexican war. He participated at the reduction of Vera Cruz, and was noticed for gallantry in the battles of Cerro Gordo, Contreras, Moline del Rey, Chapultepec, and the capture of the city of Mexico, receiving the brevets of captain for conduct at Contreras and Cherubusco and of major at Chapultepec. In the meantime he had been advanced by regular promotion to be first lieutenant in 1847. In 1852, the war having closed, he resigned and became professor of natural and experimental philosophy and artillery instructor at the Virginia State Military Institute at Lexington, Virginia, where he remained until Virginia declared for secession, he becoming chiefly noted for intense religious sentiment coupled with personal eccentricities. Upon the breaking out of the war he was made colonel and placed in command of a force sent to sieze Harper's Ferry, which he accomplished May 3, 1861. Relieved by General J. E. Johnston, May 23, he took command of the brigade of Valley Virginians, whom he moulded into that brave corps, baptized at the first Manassas, and ever after famous as the " Stonewall Brigade." After this " Stonewall " Jackson was made a major-general, in 1861, and participated until his death in all the famous campaigns about Richmond and in Virginia, and was a conspicuous figure in the memorable battles of that time. May 2, 1863, at Chancellorsville, he war wounded severely by his own troops, two balls shattering his left arm and another passing through the palm of his right hand. The left arm was amputated, but pneumonia intervened, and, weakened by the great loss of blood, he died May t0, 1863. The more his operations in the Shenandoah valley in 1862 are studied the more striking must the merits of this great soldier appear. JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER.—. Near to the heart of the people of the Anglo-Saxon race will ever lie the verses of this, the " Quaker Poet." The author of " Barclay of Ury," " Maud Muller " and "Barbara Frietchie," always pure, fervid and direct, will be remembered when many a more ambitious writer has been forgotten. John G. Whittier was born at Haverhill, Massachusetts, December 7, 1807, of Quaker parentage. He had but a common-school education and passed his boyhood days upon a farm. In early life he learned the trade of shoemaker. At the age of 68 - COMPENDIUM OF BIOGRAPHY eighteen he began to write verses for the Haverhill " Gazette." He spent two years after that at the Haverhill academy, after which, in 1829, he became editor of the "American Manufacturer," at Boston. In 1830 he succeeded George D. Prentice as editor of the " New England Weekly Review," but the following year returned to Haverhill and engaged in farming-. In 1832 and in 1836 he edited the " Gazette." In 1835 he was elected a member of the legis-lature, serving- two years. In 1836 he became secretary of the Anti-slavery Society of Phil-adelphia. In 1838 and 1839 he edited the " Pennsylvania Freeman," but in the latter year the office was sacked and burned by a mob. In 1840 Whittier settled at Amesbury, Massachusetts. In 1847 he became corresponding editor of the " National Era," an anti-slavery paper published at Washing-ton, and contributed to its columns many of his anti-slavery and other favorite lyrics. Mr. Whittier lived for many years in retirement of Quaker simplicity, publishing several volumes of poetry which have raised him to a high place among American authors and brought to him the love and admiration of his countrymen. In the electoral colleges of 1860 and 1864 Whittier was a member. Much of his time after 1876 was spent at Oak Knoll, Danvers, Massachusetts, but still retained his residence at Amesbury. He never married. His death occurred September 7, 1892. The more prominent prose writings of John G. Whittier are as follows: "Legends of New England," " Justice and Expediency, or Slavery Considered with a View to Its Abo-lition," " The Stranger in Lowell," " Super-naturalism in New England," " Leaves from Margaret Smith's Journal," " Old Portraits and Modern Sketches " and " Literary Sketches." DAVID DIXON PORTER, illustrious as admiral of the United States navy, and famous as one of the most able naval offi-cers of America, was born in Pennsylvania, June 8, 1814. His father was also a naval officer of distinction, who left the service of the United States to become commander of the naval forces of Mexico during the war between that country and Spain, and through this fact David Dixon Porter was appointed a midshipman in the Mexican navy. Two years later David D. Porter joined the United States navy as midshipman, rose in rank and eighteen years later as a lieutenant he is found actively engaged in all the operations of our navy along the east coast of Mexico. When the Civil war broke out Porter, then a commander, was dispatched in the Powhattan to the relief of Fort Pickens, Florida. This duty accom-plished, he fitted out a mortar flotilla for the reduction of the forts guarding the approaches to New Orleans, which it was considered of vital importance for the government to get possession of. After the fall of New Orleans the mortar flotilla was actively engaged at Vicksburg, and in the fall of 1862 Porter was made a rear-admiral and placed in command of all the naval forces on the western rivers above New Orleans. The ability of the man was now conspicuously manifested, not only in the battles in which he was engaged, but also in the creation of a formidable fleet out of river steamboats, which he covered with such plating as they would bear. In 1864 he was transferred to the Atlantic coast to command the naval forces destined to oper-ate against the defences of Wilmington, North Carolina, and on Jan. 15, 1865, the fall of Fort Fisher was hailed by the country as a glorious termination of his arduous war service. In 1866 he was made vice-admiral COMPENDIUM OF BIOGRAPHY - 69 and appointed superintendent of the Naval Academy. On the death of Farragut, in 187o, he succeeded that able man as admiral of the navy. His death occurred at Washington, February 13, 1891. NATHANIEL GREENE was one of the best known of the distinguished generals who led the Continental soldiery against the hosts of Great Britain during the Revolutionary war. He was the son of Quaker parents, and was born at Warwick, Rhode Island, May 27, 1742. In youth he acquired a good education, chiefly by his own efforts, as he was a tireless reader. In 1770 he was elected a member of the Assembly of his native state. The news of the battle of Lexington stirred his blood, and he offered his services to . the government of the colonies, receiving the rank of brigadier-general and the command of the troops from Rhode Island. He led them to the camp at Cambridge, and for thus violating the tenets of their faith, he was cast out of the Society of Friends, or Quakers. He soon won the esteem of General Washington. In August, 1776, Congress promoted Greene to the rank of major-general, and in the battles of Trenton and Princeton he led a division. At the battle of Brandywine, September 11, 1777, he greatly distinguished himself, protecting the retreat of the Continentals by his firm stand. At the battle of Germantown, October 4, the same year, he commanded the left wing of the army with credit. In March, 1778, he reluctantly accepted the office of quartermaster-general, but only with the understanding that his rank in the army would not be affected and that in action he should retain his command. On the bloody field of Monmouth, June 28, 1778, he commanded the right wing, as he did at the battle of Tiverton Heights. He was in command of the army in 1780, during the absence of Washington, and was president of the court-martial that tried and condemned Major Andre. After General Gates' defeat at Camden, North Carolina, in the summer of 1780, General Greene was appointed to the command of the southern army. He sent out a force under General Morgan who defeated General Tarleton at Cowpens, January 17, 1781. On joining his lieutenant, in February, he found himself out numbered by the British and retreated in good order to Virginia, but being reinforced returned to North Carolina where he fought the battle of Guilford, and a few days later compelled the retreat of Lord Cornwallis. The British were followed by Greene part of the way, when the American army marched into South Carolina. After varying success he fought the battle of Eutaw Springs, September 8, 1781. For the latter battle and its glorious consequences, which virtually closed the war in the Carolinas, Greene received a medal from Congress and many valuable grants of land from the colonies of North and South Carolina and Georgia. On the return of peace, after a year spent in Rhode Island, General Greene took up his residence on his estate near Savannah, Georgia, where he died June 19, 1786. EDGAR ALLEN POE.—Among the many great literary men whom this country has produced, there is perhaps no name more widely known than that of Edgar Allen Poe. He was born at Boston, Massachusetts, February 19, 1809. His parents were David and Elizabeth (Arnold) Poe, both actors, the mother said to have been the natural daughter of Benedict Arnold. The parents died while Edgar was 70 - COMPENDIUM OF BIOGRAPHY. still a child and he was adopted by John Allen, a wealthy and influential resident of Richmond, Virginia. Edgar was sent to school at Stoke, Newington, England, where he remained until he was thirteen years old; was prepared for college by private tutors, and in 1826 entered the Virginia University at Charlottesville. He made rapid progress in his studies, and was distinguished for his scholarship, but was expelled within a year for gambling, after which for several years he resided with his benefactor at Richmond. He then went to Baltimore, and in 1829 published a 71-page pamphlet called "Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane and Minor Poems," which, however, attracted no attention and contained nothing of particular merit. In 1830 he was admitted as a cadet at West Point, but was expelled about a year later for irregularities. Returning to the home of Mr. Allen he remained for some time, and finally quarrelled with his benefactor and enlisted as a private soldier in the U. S. army, but remained only a short time. Soon after this, in 1833, Poe won several prizes for literary work, and as a result secured the position of editor of the " Southern Literary Messenger," at Richmond, Virginia. Here he married his cousin, Virginia Clemm, who clung to him with fond devotion through all the many trials that came to them until her death in January, 1848. Poe remained with the " Messenger " for several years, writing meanwhile many tales, reviews, essays and poems. He afterward earned a precarious living by his pen in New York for a time; in 1839 became editor of " Burton's Gentleman's Magazine" ; in 1840 to 1842 was editor of " Graham's Magazine," and drifted around from one place to another, returning to New York in 1844. In 1845 his best known production, "The Raven," appeared in the " Whig Review," and gained him a reputation which is now almost world-wide. He then acted as editor and contributor on various magazines and periodicals until the death of his faithful wife in 1848. In the summer of 1849 he was engaged to be married to a lady of fortune in Richmond, Virginia, and the day set for the wedding. He started for New York to make preparations for the event, but, it is said, began drinking, was attacked with dilirium tremens in Baltimore and was removed to a hospital, where he died, October 7, 1849. The works of Edgar Allen Poe have been repeatedly published since his death, both in Europe and America, and have attained an immense popularity. HORATIO GATES, one of the prom!. inent figures in the American war for Independence, was not a native of the colonies but was born in England in 1728. In early life he entered the British army and attained the rank of major. At the capture of Martinico he was aide to General Monk-ton and after the peace of Aix la Chapelle, in 1748, he was among the first troops that landed at Halifax. He was with Braddock at his defeat in 1755, and was there severely wounded. At the conclusion of the French and Indian war Gates purchased an estate in Virginia, and, resigning froth the British army, settled down to life as a planter. On the breaking out of the Revolutionary war he entered the service of the colonies and was made adjutant-general of the Continental forces with the rank Of brigadier-general. Ike accompanied Wash. ington when he assumed the command of the army. In June, 1776, he was appointed to the command of the army of Canada, but was superseded in May of the following COMPENDIUM OF BIOGRAPHY - 71 year by General Schuyler. In August, 1777, however, the command of that army was restored to General Gates and September 19 he fought the battle of Bemis Heights. October 7, the same year, he won the battle of Stillwater, or Saratoga, and October 17 received the surrender of General Burgoyne and his army, the pivotal point of the war. This gave him a brilliant reputation. June 13, 1780, General Gates was appointed to the command of the southern military division, and August 16 of that year suffered defeat at the hands of Lord Cornwallis, at Camden, North Carolina. In December following he was superseded in the command by General Nathaniel Greene. On the signing of the peace treaty General Gates retired to his plantation in Berkeley county, Virginia, where he lived until 1790, when, emancipating all his slaves, he removed to New York City, where he resided until his death, April 10, 1806. LYMAN J. GAGE.—When President McKinley selected Lyman J. Gage as secretary of the treasury he chose one of the most eminent financiers of the century. Mr. Gage was born June 28, 1836, at De Ruyter, Madison county, New York, and was of English descent. He went to Rome, New York, with his parents when he was ten years old, and received his early education in the Rome Academy. Mr. Gage graduated from the same, and his first position was that of a clerk in the post office. When he was fifteen years of age he was detailed as mail agent on the Rome & Watertown R. R. until the postmaster-general appointed regular agents for the route. In 1854, when he was in his eighteenth year, he entered the Oneida Central Bank at Rome as a junior clerk at a salary of one hundred dollars per year. Being unable at the end of one year and a half's service to obtain an increase in salary he determined to seek a wider field of labor. Mr. Gage set out in the fall of 1855 and arrived in Chicago, Illinois, on October 3, and soon obtained a situation in Nathan Cobb's lumber yard and planing mill. He remained there three years as a bookkeeper, teamster, etc., and left on. account of change in the management. But not being able to find anything else to do he: accepted the position of night watchman in the place for a period of six weeks. He then became a bookkeeper for the Merchants Saving, Loan and Trust Company at a. salary of five hundred dollars per year. He rapidly advanced in the service of this company and in 1868 he was made cashier. Mr. Gage was next offered the position of cashier of the First National Bank and accepted the offer. He became the president: of the First National Bank of Chicago January 24, I 891, and in 1897 he was appointed secretary of the treasury. His ability as a. financier and the prominent part he took in. the discussion of financial affairs while president of the great Chicago bank gave him a national reputation. ANDREW JACKSON, the seventh president of the United States, was born at the Waxhaw settlement, Union county,. North Carolina, March 15, 1767. His. parents were Scotch-Irish, natives of Carrickfergus, who came to this country in 1665 and settled on Twelve-Mile creek, a tributary of the Catawba. His father, who was a poor farm laborer, died shortly before Andrew's birth, when the mother removed to Waxhaw, where some relatives lived. Andrew's education was very limited, he showing no aptitude for study. In 178o when but thirteen years of age, he and his 72 - COMPENDIUM OF BIOGRAPHY. brother Robert volunteered to serve in the American partisan troops under General Sumter, and witnessed the defeat at Hanging Rock. The following year the boys were both taken prisoners by the enemy and endured brutal treatment from the British officers while confined at Camden. They both took the small pox, when the mother procured their exchange but Robert died shortly after. The mother died in Charleston of ship fever, the same year. Young Jackson, now in destitute circumstances, worked for about six months in a saddler's shop, and then turned school master, although but little fitted for the position. He now began to think of a profession and at Salisbury, North Carolina, entered upon the study of law, but from all accounts gave but little attention to his books, being one of the most roistering, rollicking fellows in that town, indulging in many of the vices of his time. In 1786 he was admitted to the bar and in 1788 removed to Nashville, then in North Carolina, with the appointment of public prosecutor, then an office of little honor or emolument, but requiring much nerve, for which young Jackson was already noted. Two years later, when Tennessee became 'a territory he was appointed by Washington t0 the position of United States attorney for that district. In 1791 he married Mrs. Rachel Robards, a daughter of Colonel John Donelson, who was supposed at the time to have been divorced from her former husband that year by act of legislature of Virginia, but two years later, on finding that this divorce was not legal, and a new bill of separation being granted by the courts of Kentucky, they were remarried in 1793. This was used as a handle by his opponents in the political campaign afterwards. Jackson was untiring in his efforts as United States attorney and obtained much influence. He was chosen a member of the Constitutional Convention of 1796, when Tennessee became a state and was its first representative in congress. In 1797 he was chosen United States senator, but resigned the following year to accept a seat on the supreme court of Tennessee which he held until 1804. He was elected major-general of the militia of that state in 1801. In 1804, being unsuccessful in obtaining the governorship of Louisiana, the new territory, he retired from public life to the Hermitage, his plantation. On the outbreak of the war with Great Britain in 1812 he tendered his services to the government and went to New Orleans with the Tennessee troops in January, 1813. In March of that year he was ordered to disband his troops, but later marched against the Cherokee Indians, defeating them at Talladega, Emuckfaw and Tallapoosa. Having now a national reputation, he was appointed major-general in the United States army and was sent against the British in Florida. He conducted the defence of Mobile and seized Pensacola. He then went with his troops to New Orleans, Louisiana, where he gained the famous victory of January 8, 1815. In 1817-18 he conducted a war against the Seminoles, and in 1821 was made governor of the new territory of Florida. In 1823 he was elected United States senator, but in 1824 was the contestant with J. Q. Adams for the presidency. Four years later he was elected president, and served two terms. In 1832 he took vigorous action against the nullifiers of South Carolina, and the next year removed the public money from the United States bank. During his second term the national debt was extinguished. At the close of his administration he retired to the Hermitage, where he died June 8, 1845. COMPENDIUM OF BIOGRAPHY - 73 ANDREW CARNEGIE, the largest manufacturer of pig-iron, steel rails and coke in the world, well deserves a place among America's celebrated men. He was born November 25, 1835, at Dunfermline, Scotland, and emigrated to the United States with his father in 1845, settling in Pittsburg. Two years later Mr. Carnegie began his business career by attending a small stationary engine. This work did not suit him and he became a telegraph messenger with the Atlantic and Ohio Co., and later he became an operator, and was one of the first to read telegraphic signals by sound. Mr. Carnegie was afterward sent to the Pittsburg office of the Pennsylvania Railroad Co., as clerk to the superintendent and manager of the telegraph lines. While in this position he made the acquaintance of Mr. Woodruff, the inventor of the sleeping-car. Mr. Carnegie immediately became interested and was one of the organizers of the company for its construction after the railroad had adopted it, and the success of this venture gave him the nucleus of his wealth. He was promoted to the superintendency of the Pittsburg division of the Pennsylvania Railroad and about this time was one of the syndicate that purchased the Storey farm on Oil Creek which cost forty thousand dollars and in one year it yielded over one million dollars in cash dividends. Mr. Carnegie later was associated with others in establishing a rolling-mill, and from this has grown the most extensive and complete system of iron and steel industries ever controlled by one individual, embracing the Edgar Thomson Steel Works; Pittsburg Bessemer Steel Works; Lucy Furnaces; Union Iron Mills; Union Mill; Keystone Bridge Works; Hartman Steel Works; Frick Coke Co. ; Scotia Ore Mines. Besides directing his immense iron industries he owned eighteen English newspapers which he ran in the interest of the Radicals. He has also devoted large sums of money to benevolent and educational purposes. In 1879 he erected commodious swimming baths for the people of Dunfermline, Scotland, and in the following year gave forty thousand dollars for a free library. Mr. Carnegie gave fifty thousand dollars to Bellevue Hospital Medical College in 1884 to found what is now called "Carnegie Laboratory," and in 1885 gave five hundred thousand dollars to Pittsburg for a public library. He also gave two hundred and fifty thousand dollars for a music hall and library in Allegheny City in 1886, and two hundred and fifty thousand dollars to Edinburgh, Sc0tland, for a free library. He also established free libraries at Braddock, Pennsylvania, and other places for the benefit of his employes. He also published the following works, " An American Four-in-hand in Britain;" " Round the World;" " Triumphant Democracy; or Fifty Years' March of the Republic." GEORGE H. THOMAS, the " Rock of Chickamauga," one of the best known commanders during the late Civil war, was born in Southampton county, Virginia, July 31, 1816, his parents being of Welsh and French origin .respectively. In 1836 young Thomas was appointed a cadet at the Military Academy, at West Point, from which he graduated in 1840, and was promoted to the office of second lieutenant in the Third Artillery. Shortly after, with his company, he went to Florida, where he served for two years against the Seminole Indians. In 1841 he was brevetted first lieutenant for gallant conduct. He remained in garrison in the south and southwest until 1845, at which date with the regiment he joined the army under General Taylor, and participat- 74 - COMPENDIUM OE BIOGRAPHY'. ed in the defense of Fort Brown, the storming of Monterey and the battle of Buena Vista. After the latter event he remained in garrison, now brevetted major, until the close of the Mexican war. After a year spent in Florida, Captain Thomas was ordered to West Point, where he served as instructor until 1854. He then was transferred to California. In May, 1855, Thomas was appointed major of the Second Cavalry, with whom he spent five years in Texas. Although a southern man, and surrounded by brother officers who all were afterwards in the Confederate service, Major Thomas never swerved from his allegiance to the government. A. S. Johnston was the colonel of the regiment, R. E. Lee the lieutenant-colonel, and W. J. Hardee, senior major, while among the younger officers were Hood, Fitz Hugh Lee, Van Dorn and Kirby Smith. When these officers left the regiment to take up arms for the Confederate cause he remained with it, and April 17th, 1861, crossed the Potomac into his native state, at its head. After taking an active part in the opening scenes of the war on the Potomac and Shenandoah, in August, 1861, he was promoted to be brigadier-general and transferred to the Army of the Cumberland. January 19-20, 1862, Thomas defeated Crittenden at Mill Springs, and this brought him into notice and laid the foundation of his fame. He continued in command of his division until September 20, 1862, except during the Corinth campaign when he commanded the right wing of the Army of the Tennessee. He was in command of the latter at the battle of Perryville, also, October 8, 1862. On the division of the Army of the Cumberland into corps, January 9, 1863, General Thomas was assigned to the command of the Fourteenth, and at the battle of Chick amauga, after the retreat of Rosecrans, firmly held his own against the hosts of General Bragg. A history of his services from that on would be a history of the war in the southwest. On September 27, 1864, General Thomas was given command in Tennessee, and after organizing his army, defeated General Hood in the battle of Nashville, December 15 and 16, 1864. Much complaint was made before this on account of what they termed Thomas' slowness, and he was about to be superseded because he would not strike until he got ready, but when the blow was struck General Grant was the first to place on record this vindica tion of Thomas' judgment. He received a vote of thanks from Congress, and from the legislature of Tennessee a gold medal. After the close of the war General Thomas. had command of several of the military divisions, and died at San Francisco, California, March 28, 1870. GEORGE BANCROFT, one of the most eminent American historians, was a native of Massachusetts, born at Worcester, October 3, 1800, and a son of Aaron. Bancroft, D. D. The father, Aaron Bancroft, was born at Reading, Massachusetts, November 10, 1755. He graduated at Harvard in 1778, became a minister, and for half a century was rated as one of the ablest preachers in New England. He was also a prolific writer and published a number of works among which was " Life of George Washington." Aaron Bancroft died August 19, 1839. The subject of our present biography, George Bancroft, graduated at Harvard in 1817, and the following year entered the University of Gottingen, where he studied history and philology under the most eminent teachers, and in 1820 received the de- COMPENDIUM OF BIOGRAPHY - 75 gree of doctor of philosophy at Gottingen. Upon his return home he published a volume of poems, and later a translation of Heeren's " Reflections on the Politics of Ancient Greece." In 1834 he produced the first volume of his " History of the United States," this being followed by other volumes at different intervals later. This was iris greatest work and ranks as the highest authority, taking its place among the greatest of American productions. George Bancroft was appointed secretary of the navy by President Polk in 1845, but resigned in 1846 and became minister plenipotentiary to England. In 1849 he retired from public life and took up his residence at Washington, D. C. In 1867 he was appointed United States minister to the court of Berlin and negotiated the treaty by which Germans coming to the United States were released from their allegiance to the government of their native land. In 1871 he was minister plenipotentiary to the German empire and served until 1874. The death of George Bancroft occurred January 17, 1891. GEORGE GORDON MEADE, a famous Union general, was born at Cadiz, Spain, December 30, 1815, his father being United States naval agent at that port. After receiving a good education he entered the West Point Military Academy in 1831. From here he was graduated June 30, 1835, and received the rank of second lieutenant of artillery. He participated in the Seminole war, but resigned from the army in October, 1836. He entered upon the profession of civil engineer, which he followed for several years, part of the time in the service of the government in making surveys of the mouth of the Mississippi river. His report and results of some experiments made by him in this service gained Meade much credit. He also was employed in surveying the boundary line of Texas and the northeastern boundary line between the United States and Canada. In 1842 he was reappointed in the army to the position of second lieutenant of engineers. During the Mexican war he served with distinction on the staff of General Taylor in the battles of Palo Alto, Resaca de la Palma and the storming of Monterey. He received his brevet of first lieutenant for the latter action. In 1851 he was made full first lieutenant in his corps; a captain in 1856, and major soon after. At the close of the war with Mexico he was employed in lighthouse construction and in geodetic surveys until the breaking out of the Rebellion, in which he. gained great reputation. In August, 1861, he was made brigadier-general of volunteers and placed in command of the second brigade of the Pennsylvania Reserves, a division of the First Corps in the Army of the Potomac. In the campaign of 1862, under McClellan, Meade took an active part, being present at the battles of Mechanicsville, Gaines' Mill and Glendale, in the latter of which he was severely wounded. On rejoining his command he was given a division and distinguished himself at its head in the battles of South Mountain and Antietam. During the latter, on the wounding of General Hooker, Meade was placed in command of the corps and was himself slightly wounded. For services he was promoted, November, 1862, to the rank of major-general of volunteers. On the recovery of General Hooker General Meade returned to his division and in December, 1862, at Fredericksburg, led an attack which Penetrated Lee's right line and swept to his rear. Being outnumbered and unsupported, he finally was driven back. The same month Meade was assigned to the 76 - COMPENDIUM OF BIOGRAPHY. command of the Fifth Corps, and at Chancellorsville in May, 1863, his sagacity and ability so struck General Hooker that when the latter asked to be relieved of the command, in June of the same year, he nominated Meade as his successor. June 28, 1863, President Lincoln commissioned General Meade commander-in-chief of the Army of the Potomac, then scattered and moving hastily through Pennsylvania to the great and decisive battlefield at Gettysburg, at which he was in full command. With the victory on those July days the name of Meade will ever be associated. From that time until the close of the war he commanded the Army of the Potomac. In 1864 General Grant, being placed at the head of all the armies, took up his quarters with the Army of the Potomac. From that time until the surrender of Lee at Appomatox Meade's ability shone conspicuously, and his tact in the delicate position in leading his army under the eye of his superior officer commanded the respect and esteem of General Grant. For services Meade was promoted to the rank of major-general, and on the close of hostilities, in July, 1865, was assigned to the command of the military division of the Atlantic, with headquarters at Philadelphia. This post he held, with the exception of a short period on detached duty in Georgia, until his death, which took place November 6, 1872. DAVID CROCKETT was a noted hunter and scout, and also one of the earliest of American humorists. He was born August 17, 1786, in Tennessee, and was one of the most prominent men of his locality, serving as representative- in congress from 1827 until 1831. He attracted considerable notice while a member of congress and was closely associated with General Jack- son, of whom he was a personal friend. He went to Texas and enlisted in the Texan army at the time of the revolt of Texas against Mexico and gained a wide reputation as a scout. He was one of the famous one hundred and forty men under Colonel W. B. Travis who were besieged in Fort Alamo, near San Antonio, Texas, by General Santa Anna with some five thousand Mexicans on February 23, 1836. The fort was defended for ten days, frequent assaults being repelled with great slaughter, over one thousand Mexicans being killed or wounded, while not a man in the fort was injured. Finally, on March 6, three assaults were made, and in the hand-to-hand fight that followed the last, the Texans were wofully outnumbered and overpowered. They fought desperately with clubbed muskets till only six were left alive, including W. B. Travis, David Crockett and James Bowie. These surrendered under promise of protection; but when they were brought before Santa Anna he ordered them all to be cut to pieces. HENRY WATTERSON, one of the most conspicuous figures in the history of American journalism, was born at Washington, District of Columbia, February 16, 1840. His boyhood days were mostly spent in the city of his birth, where his father, Harvey M. Watterson, was editor of the "Union," a well known journal. Owing to a weakness of the eyes, which interfered with a systematic course of study, young Watterson was educated almost entirely at home. A successful college career was out of the question, but he acquired a good knowledge of music, literature and art from private tutors, but the most valuabie part of the training he received was by associating with his father and the throng of COMPENDIUM OF BIOGRAPHY - 77 public men whom he met in Washington in the stirring days immediately preceding the Civil war. He began his journalistic career at an early age as dramatic and musical critic, and in 1858, became editor of the " Democratic Review " and at the same time contributed to the " States," a journal of liberal opinions published in Washington. In this he remained until the breaking out of the war, when the "States," opposing the administration, was suppressed, and young Watterson removed to . Tennessee. He next appears as editor of the Nashville "Republican Banner," the most influential paper in the state at that time. After the occupation of Nashville by the Federal troops, Watterson served as a volunteer staff officer in the Confederate service until the close of the war, with the exception of a year spent in editing the Chattanooga " Rebel." On the close of the war he returned to Nashville and resumed his connection with the " Banner." After a trip. to Europe he assumed control of the Louisville " Journal," which he soon combined with the " Courier " and the "Democrat" of that place, founding the well-known " Courier-Journal," the first number of which appeared November 8, 1868. Mr. Watterson also represented his district in congress for several years. PATRICK SARSFIELD GILMORE, one of the most successful and widely known bandmasters and musicians of the last half century in America, was born in Ballygar, Ireland, on Christmas day, 1829. He attended a public school until apprenticed to a wholesale merchant at Athlone, of the brass band of which town he soon became a member. His passion for music conflicting with the duties of a mercantile life, his position as clerk was exchanged for that of musical instructor to the young sons of his employer. At the age of nineteen he sailed for America and two days after his arrival in Boston was put in charge of the band instrument department of a prominent music house. In the interests of the publications of this house he organized a minstrel company known as " Ordway's Eolians," with which he first achieved success as a cornet soloist. Later on he was called the best E-flat cornetist in the United States. He became leader, successively, of the Suffolk, Boston Brigade and Salem bands. During his connection with the latter he inaugurated the famous Fourth of July concerts on Boston Common, since adopted as a regular programme for the celebration of Independence Day. In 1858 Mr. Gilmore founded the organization famous thereafter as Gilmore's Band. At the outbreak of the Civil war this band was attached to the Twenty-Fourth , Massachusetts Infantry. Later, when the economical policy of dispensing with music had proved a mistake, Gilmore was entrusted with the re-organization of state military bands, and upon his arrival at New Orleans with his own band was made bandmaster-general by General. Banks. On the inauguration of Governor Hahn, later on, in Lafayette square, New Orleans, ten thousand children, mostly of Confederate parents, rose to the baton of Gilmore and, accompanied by six hundred instruments, thirty-six guns and the united fire of three regiments of infantry, sang the Star-Spangled Banner, America and other patriotic Union airs. In June, 1867, Mr. Gilmore conceived a national musical festival, which was denounced as a chimerical undertaking, but lie succeeded and June 15, 1869, stepped upon the stage of the Boston Colosseum, a vast structure erected for the occasion, and in the presence of over fifty 78 - COMPENDIUM OF BIOGRAPHY   thousand people lifted his baton over an orchestra of one thousand and a chorus of ten thousand. On the 17th of June, 1872, he opened a still greater festival in Boston, when, in addition to an orchestra of two thousand and a chorus of twenty thousand, were present the Band of the Grenadier Guards, of London, of the Garde Republicaine, of Paris, of Kaiser Franz, of Berlin, and one from Dublin, Ireland, together with Johann Strauss, Franz Abt and many other soloists, vocal and instrumental. Gilmore's death. occurred September 24, 1892.   MARTIN VAN BUREN was the eighth president of the United States, 1837 to 1841. He was of Dutch extraction, and his ancestors were among the earliest settlers on the banks of the Hudson. He was born December 5, 1782, at Kinderhook, New York. Mr. Van Buren took up the study of law at the age of fourteen and took an active part in political matters before he had attained his majority. He commenced the practice of law in 1803 at his native town, and in 1809 he removed to Hudson, Columbia county, New York, where he spent seven years gaining strength and wisdom from his contentions at the bar with some of the ablest men of the profession. Mr. Van Buren was elected to the state senate, and from 1815 until 1819 he was attorney-general of the state. He was reelected to the senate in 1816, and in 1818 he was one of the famous clique of politicians known as the " Albany regency." Mr. Van Buren was a member of the convention for the revision of the state constitution, in 1821. In the same year he was elected to the United States senate and served his term in a manner that caused his re-election to that body in 1827, but resigned the following year as he had been elected governor of New York. Mr. Van Buren was appointed by President Jackson as secretary of state in March, r 8 29, but resigned in 1831, and during the recess of congress he was appointed minister to England. The senate, however, when it convened in December refused to ratify the appointment. In May, 1832, he was nominated by the Democrats as their candidate for vice-president on the ticket with Andrew Jackson, and he was elected in the following November. He received the nomination to succeed President Jackson in 1836, as the Democratic candidate, and in the electoral college he received one hundred and seventy votes out of two hundred and eighty-three, and was inaugurated March 4, 1837. His administration was begun at a time of great business depression, and unparalled financial distress, which caused the suspension of specie payments by the banks. Nearly every bank in the country was forced to suspend specie payment, and no less than two hundred and fifty-four business houses failed in New York in one week. The President urged the adoption of the independent treasury idea, which passed through the senate twice but each time it was defeated in the house. However the measure ultimately became a law near the close of President Van Buren's term of office. Another important measure that was passed was the pre-emption law that gave the actual settlers preference in the purchase of public lands. The question of slavery had begun to assume great preponderance during this administration, and a great conflict was tided over by the passage of a resolution that prohibited petitions or papers that in any way related to slavery to be acted upon. In the Democratic convention of 1840 President Van Buren secured the nomination for re-election on that ticket   COMPENDIUM. OF BIOGRAPHY - 79   without opposition, but in the election he only received the votes of seven states, his opponent, W. H. Harrison, being elected president. In 1848 Mr. Van Buren was the candidate of the "Free-Soilers," but was unsuccessful. After this he retired from public life and spent the remainder of his life on his estate at Kinderhook, where he died July 24, 1862.   WINFIELD SCOTT, a distinguished American general, was born June 13, 1786, near Petersburg, Dinwiddie county, Virginia, and was educated at the William and Mary College. He studied law and was admitted to the bar, and in 1808 he accepted an appointment as captain of light artillery, and was ordered to New Orleans. In June, 1812, he was promoted to be lieutenant-colonel, and on application was sent to the frontier, and reported to General Smyth, near Buffalo. , He was made adjutant-general with the rank of a colonel, in March, 1813, and the same month attained the colonelcy of his regiment. He participated in the principal battles of the war and was wounded many times, and at the close of the war he was voted a gold medal by congress for his services. He was a writer of considerable merit on military topics, and he gave to the military science, " General Regulations of the Army " and " System of Infantry and Rifle Practice." He took a prominent part in the Black Hawk war, and at the beginning of the Mexican war he was appointed to take the command of the army. Gen. Scott immediately assembled his troops at Lobos Island from which he moved by transports to Vera Cruz, which he took March 29, 1847, and rapidly followed up his first success. He fought the battles of Cerro Gordo and Jalapa, both of .which he won, and proceeded to Pueblo where he was preceded by Worth's division which had taken the town and waited for the coming of Scott. The army was forced to wait here for supplies, and August 7th, General Scott started on his victorious march to the city of Mexico with ten thousand, seven hundred and thirty-eight men. The battles of Contreras, Cherubusco and San Antonio were fought August 19-20, and on the 24th an armistice was agreed upon, but as the commissioners could not agree on the terms of settlement, the fighting was renewed at Molino Del Rey, and the Heights of Chapultepec were carried by the victorious army of General Scott. He gave the enemy no respite, however, and vigorously followed up his advantages. On September 14, he entered the City of Mexico and dictated the terms of surrender in the very heart of the Mexican Republic. General Scott was offered the presidency of the Mexican Republic, but declined. Congress extended him a vote of thanks and ordered a gold medal be struck in honor of his generalship and bravery. He was candidate for the presidency on the Whig plat form but was defeated. He was honored by having the title of lieutenant-general conferred upon him in 1855. At the beginning of the Civil war he was too infirm to take charge of the army, but did signal service in behalf of the government. He retired from the service November 1, 1861, and in 1864 he published his " Autobiography." General Scott died at West Point, May 29, 1866   EDWARD EVERETT HALE for many years occupied a high place among the most honored of America's citizens. As a preacher he ranks among the foremost in the New England states, but to the general public he is best known through his writings. Born in Boston, Mass., April 3,   80 - COMPENDIUM OF BIOGRAPHY.   1822, a descendant of one of the most prominent New England families, he enjoyed in his youth many of the advantages denied the majority of boys. He received his preparatory schooling at the Boston Latin School, after which he finished his studies at Harvard where he was graduated with high honors in 1839. Having studied theology at home, Mr. Hale embraced the ministry and in 1846 became pastor of a Unitarian church in Worcester, Massachusetts, a post which he occupied about ten years. He then, in 1856, became pastor of the South Congregational church in Boston, over which he presided many years.   Mr. Hale also found time to write a great many literary works of a high class. Among many other well-known productions A his are "The Rosary," " Margaret Percival in America," " Sketches of Christian History," " Kansas and Nebraska," " Letters on Irish Emigration," " Ninety Days' Worth of Europe," " If, Yes, and Perhaps," "Ingham Papers," Reformation," " Level Best and Other Stories, " " Ups and Downs, " "Christmas Eve and Christmas Day," " In His Name," " Our New Crusade," " Workingmen's Homes," " Boys' Heroes," etc., etc., besides many others which might be mentioned. One of his works, " In His Name," has earned itself enduring fame by the good deeds it has called forth. The numerous associations known as "The King's Daughters," which has accomplished much good, owe their existence to the story mentioned.   DAVID GLASCOE FARRAGUT stands pre-eminent as one of the greatest naval officers of the world. He was born at Campbell's Station, East Tennessee., July 5, 1801, and entered the navy of the United States as a midshipman. He had the good fortune to serve under Captain David Porter, who commanded the " Essex," and by whom he was taught the ideas of devotion to duty from which he never swerved during, all his career. In 1823 Mr. Farragut took part in a severe fight, the result of which was the suppression of piracy in the West Indies. He then entered upon the regular duties of his profession which was. only broken into by a year's residence with Charles Folsom, our consul at Tunis, who. was afterwards a distinguished professor at Harvard. Mr. Farragut was one of the best linguists in the navy. He had risen through the different grades of the service until the war of 1861-65 found him a captain residing at Norfolk, Virginia. He removed with his family to Hastings, on the Hudson, and hastened to offer his services to the Federal government, and as the capture of New Orleans had been resolved upon, Farragut was chosen to command the expedition. His force consisted of the West Gulf blockading squadron and Porter's mortar flotilla. In January, 1862, he hoisted his pennant at the mizzen peak of the " Hartford " at Hampton roads, set sail from thence on the 3rd of February and reached Ship Island on the 20th of the same month. A council of war was held on the 20th of April, in which it was decided that whatever was to be done must be done quickly. The signal was made from the flagship and accordingly the fleet weighed anchor at 1:55 on the morning of April 24th, and at 3:30 the whole force was. under way. The history of this brilliant struggle is well known, and the glory of it made Farragut a hero and also made him rear admiral. In the summer of 1862 he ran the batteries at Vicksburg, and on March 14, 1863, lie passed through the fearful and destructive fire from Port Hudson, and opened up com-munication with Flag-officer Porter,   COMPENDIUM OF BIOGRAPHY - 83   had control of the upper Mississippi. On May 24th he commenced active operations against that fort in conjunction with the army and it fell on July 9th. Mr. Farragut filled the measure of his fame on the 5th of August, 1864, by his great victory, the capture of Mobile Bay and the destruction of the Confederate fleet, including the formidable ram Tennessee. For this victory the rank of admiral was given to Mr. Farragut. He died at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, August 4, 1870.   GEORGE W. CHILDS, a philanthropist whose remarkable personality stood for the best and highest type of American citizenship, and whose whole life was an object lesson in noble living, was born in 1829 at Baltimore, Maryland, of humble parents, and spent his early life in unremitting toil. He was a self-made man in the fullest sense of the word, and gained his great wealth by his own efforts. He was a man of very great influence, and this, in conjunction with his wealth, would have been, in the hands of other men, a means of getting them political preferment, but. Mr. Childs steadily declined any suggestions that would bring him to figure prominently in public affairs. He did not choose to found a financial dynasty, but devoted all his powers to the helping of others, with the most enlightened beneficence and broadest sympathy. Mr. Childs once remarked that his greatest pleasure in life whs in doing good to others. He always despised meanness, and one of his objects of life was to prove that a man could be liberal and successful at the same time. Upon these lines Mr. Childs made a name for himself as the director of one of the representative newspapers of America, "The Philadelphia Public Ledger," which was owned jointly by himself and the Drexel estate, and which he edited for thirty years. He acquired Control of the paper at a time when it was being published at a heavy loss, set it upon a firm basis of prosperity, and he made it more than a money-making machine—he made it respected as an exponent of the best side of journalism, and it stands as a monument to his sound judgment and upright business principles. Mr. Childs' charitable repute brought him many applications for assistance, and he never refused to help any one that was deserving of aid; and not only did he help those who asked, but he would by careful inquiry find those who needed aid but were too proud to solicit it. He was a considerable employer of labor, and his liberality was almost unparalleled. The death of this great and good man occurred February 3d, 1894.   PATRICK HENRY won his way to un- dying fame in the annals of the early history of the United States by introducing into the house of burgesses his famous resolution against the Stamp Act, which he carried through, after a stormy debate, by a majority of one. At this time he exclaimed " Cesar had his Brutus, Charles I his Cromwell and George III " (here he was interrupted by cries of " treason ") " may profit by their example. If this be treason make the most of it."   Patrick Henry was born at Studley, Hanover county, Virginia, May 29, 1736, and was a son of Colonel John Henry, a magistrate and school teacher of Aberdeen, Scotland, and a nephew of Robertson, the historian. He received his education from his father, and was married at the age of eighteen. He was twice bankrupted before he had reached his twenty-fourth year, when after six weeks of study he was admitted to.   84 - COMPENDIUM OF BIOGRAPHY.   the bar. He worked for three years without a case and finally was applauded for his plea for the people's rights and gained immense popularity. After his famous Stamp Act resolution he was the leader of the patriots in Virginia. In 1769 he was admitted to practice in the general courts and speedily won a fortune by his distinguished ability as a speaker. He was the first speaker of the General Congress at Philadelphia in 1774. He was for a time a colonel of militia in 1775, and from 1776 to 1779 and 1781 to 1786 he was governor of Virginia. For a number of years he retired from public life and was tendered and declined a number of important political offices, and in March, 1789, he was elected state senator but aid not take his seat on account of his death which occurred at Red Hill, Charlotte county, Virginia, June 6, 1799.   BENEDICT ARNOLD, an American general and traitor of the Revolutionary war, is one of the noted characters in American history. He was born in Norwich, Connecticut, January 3, 1740. He ran away and enlisted in the army when young, but deserted in a short time. He then became a merchant at New Haven, Connecticut, but failed. In 1775 he was commissioned colonel in the Massachusetts militia, and in the autumn of that year was placed in command of one thousand men for the invasion of Canada. He marched his army through the forests of Maine and joined General Montgomery before Quebec. Their combined forces attacked that city on December 31, 1775, and Montgomery was killed, and Arnold, severely wounded, was compelled to retreat and endure a rigorous winter a few miles from the city, where they were at the mercy of the Canadian troops had they cared to attack them. On his return he was raised to the rank of brigadier-general. He was given command of a small flotilla on Lake Champlain, with which he encountered an immense force, and though defeated, performed many deeds of valor. He resented the action of congress in promoting a number of his fellow officers and neglecting himself. In 1777 he was made major-general, and under General Gates at Bemis Heights fought valiantly. For some reason General Gates found fault with his conduct and ordered him under arrest, and he was kept in his tent until the battle of Stillwater was waxing hot, when Arnold mounted his horse and rode to the front of his old troop, gave command to charge, and rode like a mad man into the thickest of the fight and was not overtaken by Gates' courier until he had routed the enemy and fell wounded. Upon his recovery he was made general, and was placed in command at Philadelphia. Here he married, and his acts of rapacity soon resulted in a court-martial. He was sentenced to be reprimanded by the commander-in-chief, and though Washington performed this duty with utmost delicacy and consideration, it was never forgiven. Arnold obtained command at West Point, the most important post held by the Americans, in 1780, and immediately offered to surrender it to Sir Henry Clinton, British commander at New York. Major Andre was sent to arrange details with Arnold, but on his return trip to New York he was captured by Americans, the plot was detected, and Andre suffered the death penalty as a spy. Arnold escaped, and was paid about $40,000 by the British for his treason and was made brigadier-general. He afterward commanded an expedition that plundered a portion of Virginia, and another that burned New London, Connecticut, and captured Fort Trum-   COMPENDIUM OF BIOGRAPHY - 85   bull, the commandant of which Arnold murdered with the sword he had just surrendered. He passed the latter part of his life in England, universally despised, and died in London June 14, 1801.   ROBERT G. INGERSOLL, one of the most brilliant orators that America has produced, also a lawyer of considerable merit, won most of his fame as a lecturer. Mr. Ingersoll was born August 24, 1833, at Dryden, Gates county, New York, and received his education in the common schools. He went west at the age of twelve, and for a short time he attended an academy in Tennessee, and also taught school in that state. He be gan the practice of law in the southern part of Illinois in 1854. Colonel Ingcrsoll's principal fame was made in the lecture room by his lectures in which he ridiculed religious faith and creeds and criticised the Bible and the Christian religion. He was the orator of the day in the Decoration Day celebration in the city of New York in 1882 and his oration was widely commended. He first attracted political notice in the convention at Cincinnati in 1876 by his brilliant eulogy on James G. Blaine. He practiced law in Peoria, Illinois, for a number of years, but later located in the city of New York. He published the following: "The Gods and other Lectures;" "The Ghosts ;" "Some Mistakes of Moses ;" "What Shall I Do To Be Saved ;" " Interviews on Talmage and Presbyterian Catechism ;" The " North American Review Controversy;" " Prose Poems;" " A Vision of War ;" etc.   JOSEPH ECCLESTON JOHNSTON, a noted general in the Confederate army, was born in Prince Edward county, Virginia, in 1807. He graduated from West Point and entered the army in 1829. For a number of years his chief service was garrison duty. He saw active service, however, in the Seminole war in Florida, part of the time as a staff officer of General Scott. He resigned his commission in 1837, but returned to the army a year later, and was brevetted captain for gallant services in Florida. He was made first lieutenant of topographical engineers, and was engaged in river and harbor improvements and also in the survey of the Texas boundary and the northern boundary of the United States until the beginning of the war with Mexico. He was at the siege of Vera Cruz, and at the battle of Cerro Gordo was wounded while reconnoitering the enemy's position, after which he was brevetted major and colonel. He was in all the battles about the city of Mexico, and was again wounded in the final assault upon that city. After the Mexican war closed he returned to duty as captain of topographical engineers, but in 1855 he was made lieutenant-colonel of cavalry and did frontier duty, and was appointed inspector-general of the expedition to Utah. In 1860 he was appointed quartermaster-general with rank of brigadier-general. At the outbreak of hostilities in 1861 he resigned his commission and received the appointment of major-general of the Confederate army. He held Harper's Ferry, and later fought General Patterson about Winchester. At the battle of Bull Run he declined command in favor of Beau-regard, and acted under that general's directions. He commanded the Confederates in the famous Peninsular campaign, and was severely wounded at Fair Oaks and was succeeded in command by General Lee. Upon his recovery he was made lieutenant-general and assigned to the command of the southwestern department. He attempted     86 - COMPENDIUM OF BIOGRAPHY   to raise the siege of Vicksburg, and was finally defeated at Jackson, Mississippi. Having been made a general he succeeded General Bragg in command of the army of Tennessee and was ordered to check General Sherman's advance upon Atlanta. Not daring to risk a battle with the overwhelm-ing forces of Sherman, he slowly retreated toward Atlanta, and was relieved of com-mand by President Davis and succeeded by General Hood. Hood utterly destroyed his own army by three furious attacks upon Sherman. Johnston was restored to com-mand in the Carolinas, and again faced Sherman, but was defeated in several en-gagements and continued a. slow retreat toward Richmond. Hearing of Lee's sur-render, he communicated with General Sherman, and finally surrendered his army at Durham, North Carolina, April 26, 1865.   General Johnston was elected a member of the forty-sixth congress and was appointed United States railroad commis-sioner in 1885. His death occurred March 21, 1891.   SAMUEL LANGHORNE CLEMENS, known throughout the civilized world as "MARK TWAIN, " is recognized as one of the greatest humorists America has produced. He was born in Monroe county, Missouri, November 30, 1835. He spent his boyhood days in his native state and many of his earlier experiences are related in various forms in his later writings. One of his early acquaintances, Capt. Isaiah Sellers, at an early day furnished river news for the New Orleans " Picayune," using the nom-de-plume of " Mark Twain." Sellers died in 1863 and Clemens took up his nom-de-plume and made it famous throughout the world by his literary work. In 1862 Mr. Clemens became a journalist at Virginia, Nevada, and afterward followed the same profession at San Francisco and Buffalo, New York. He accumulated a fortune from the sale of his many publications, but in later years engaged in business enterprises, particularly the manufacture of a typesetting machine, which dissipated his fortune and reduced him almost to poverty, but with resolute heart he at once again took up his pen and engaged in literary work in the effort to regain his lost ground. Among the best known of his works may be mentioned the following: " The Jumping Frog, " " Tom Sawyer , " " Roughing it," " Innocents Abroad," " Huckleberry Finn," " Gilded Age," " Prince and Pauper," " Million Pound Bank Note," "A Yankee in King Arthur's Court," etc.   CHRISTOPHER CARSON, better known as "KIT CARSON;" was an American trapper and scout who gained a wide reputation for his frontier Work. He was a native of Kentucky, born December 24th, 1809. He grew to manhood there, developing a natural inclination for adventure in the pioneer experiences in his native state. When yet a young man he became quite well known on the frontier. He served as a guide to Gen. Fremont in his Rocky Mountain explorations and enlisted in the army. He was an officer in the United States service in both the Mexican war and the great Civil war, and in the latter received a brevet of brigadier-general for meritorious service. His death occurred May 23, 1868.   JOHN SHERMAN.--Statesman, politican, cabinet officer and senator, the name of the gentleman who heads this sketch is al-most a household word throughout this country. Identified with some of the most   COMPENDIUM OF BIOGRAPHY - 87   important measures adopted by our Government since the close of the Civil war, he may well be called one of the leading men of his day.   John Sherman was born at Lancaster, Fairfield county, Ohio, May l0th, 1823, the son of Charles R. Sherman, an eminent lawyer and judge of the supreme court of Ohio and who died in 1829. The subject of this article received an academic education and was admitted to the bar in 1844. In the Whig conventions of 1844 and 1848 he sat as a delegate. He was a member of the National house of representatives, from 1855 to 1861. In 1860 he was reelected to the same position but was chosen United States senator before he took his seat in the lower house. He was re-elected senator in 1866 and 1872 and was long chairman of the committee on finance and on agriculture. He took a prominent part in debates on finance and on the conduct of the war, and was one of the authors of the reconstruction measures in 1866 and 1867, and was appointed secretary of the treasury March 7th, 1877.   Mr. Sherman was re-elected United States senator from Ohio January 18th, 1881, and again in 1886 and 1892, during which time he was regarded as one of the most prominent leaders of the Republican party, both in the senate and in the country. He was several times the favorite of his state for the nomination for president.   On the formation of his cabinet in March, 1897, President McKinley tendered the position of secretary of state to Mr. Sherman, which was accepted.   WILLIAM HENRY HARRISON, ninth president of the United States, was born in Charles county, Virginia, February 9, 1773, the son of Governor Benjamin Harrison. He took a course in Hampden-Sidney College with a view to the practice of medicine, and then went to Philadelphia to study under Dr. Rush, but in 1791 he entered the army, and obtained the commission of ensign, was soon promoted to the lieutenancy, and was with General Wayne in his war against the Indians. For his valuable service he was promoted to the rank of captain and given command of Fort Washington, now Cincinnati. He was appointed secretary of the Northwest Territory in 1797, and in 1799 became its representative in congress. In 1801 he was appointed governor of Indiana Territory, and held the position for twelve years, during which time he negotiated important treaties with the Indians, causing them to relinquish millions of acres of land, and also won the battle of Tippecanoe in 1811. He succeeded in obtaining a change in the law which did not permit purchase of public lands in less tracts than four thousand acres, reducing the limit to three hundred and twenty acres. He became major-general of Kentucky militia and brigadier-general in the United States army in 1812, and won great renown in the defense of Fort Meigs, and his victory over the British and Indians under Proctor and Tecumseh at the Thames river, October 5, 1813.   In 1816 General Harrison was elected to congress from Ohio, and during the canvass was accused of corrupt methods in regard to the commissariat of the army. He demanded an investigation after the election and was exonerated. In 1819 he was elected to the Ohio state senate, and in 1824 he gave his vote as a presidential elector to Henry Clay. He became a member of the United States senate the same year. During the last year of Adams' administration he was sent as minister to Colombia, but was re-   88 - COMPENDIUM OF BIOGRAPHY.   called by President Jackson the following year. He then retired to his estate at North Bend, Ohio, a few miles below Cincinnati. In 1836 he was a candidate for the presidency, but as there were three other candidates the votes were divided, he receiving seventy-three electoral votes, a majority going to Mr. Van Buren, the Democratic candidate. Four years later General Harrison was again nominated by the Whigs, and elected by a tremendous majority. The campaign was noted for its novel features, many of which have found a permanent place in subsequent campaigns. Those peculiar to that campaign, however, were the " log-cabin " and " hard cider " watchwords, which produced great enthusiasm among his followers. One month after his inauguration he died from an attack of pleurisy, April 4, 1841.   CHARLES A. DANA, the well-known and widely read journalist of New York City, a native of Hinsdale, New Hampshire, was born August 8, 1819. He received the elements of a good education in his youth and studied for two years at Harvard University. Owing to some disease of the eyes he was unable to complete his course and graduate, but was granted the degree of A. M. notwithstanding. For some time he was editor of the " Harbinger," and was a regular contributor to the Boston " Chronotype." In 1847 he became connected with the New York " Tribune," and continued on the staff of that journal until 1858. In the latter year he edited and compiled " The Household Book of Poetry," and later, in connection with George Ripley, edited the New American Cyclopdia."   Mr. Dana, on severing his connection with the " Tribune " in 1867, became editor of the New York " Sun," a paper with which he was identified for many years, and which he made one of the leaders of thought in the eastern part of the United States. He wielded a forceful pen and fearlessly attacked whatever was corrupt and unworthy in politics, state or national. The same year, 1867, Mr. Dana organized the New York " Sun " Company.   During the troublous days of the war, when the fate of the Nation depended upon the armies in the field, Mr. Dana accepted the arduous and responsible position of assistant secretary of war, and held the position during the greater part of 1863 and 1864. He died October 17, 1897.   ASA GRAY was recognized throughout the scientific world as one of the ablest and most eminent of botanists. He was born at Paris, Oneida county, New York, November 18, 1810. He received his medical degree at the Fairfield College of Physicians and Surgeons, in Herkimer county, New York, and studied botany with the late Professor Torrey, of New York. He was appointed botanist to the Wilkes expedition in 1834, but declined the offer and became professor of natural history in Harvard University in 1842. He retired from the active duties of this post in 1873, and in 1874 he was the regent of the Smithsonian Institution at Washington, District of Columbia.   Dr. Gray wrote several books on the subject of the many sciences of which he was master. In 1836 he published his " Elements of Botany," " Manual of Botany" in 1848; the unfinished "Flora of North America," by himself and Dr. Torrey, the publication of which commenced in 1838. There is another of his unfinished works called " Genera Boreali-Americana," published in 1848, and the " Botany of the United States Pacific Exploring Expedition in 1854 . " He wrote many elaborate papers   COMPENDIUM OF BIOGRAPHY - 89   on the botany of the west and southwest that were published in the Smithsonian Contributions, Memoirs, etc., of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, of which institution he was president for ten years. He was also the author of many of the government reports. " How Plants Grow," "Lessons in Botany," " Structural and Systematic Botany," are also works from his ready pen.   Dr. Gray published in 1861 his " Free Examination of Darwin's Treatise " and his " Darwiniana," in 1876. Mr. Gray was elected July 29, 1878, to a membership in the Institute of France, Academy of Sciences. His death occurred at Cambridge, Massachusetts, January 30, 1889.   WILLIAM MAXWELL EVARTS was one of the greatest leaders of the American bar. He was born in Boston, Massachusetts, February 6, 1818, and graduated from Yale College in 1837. He took up the study of law, which he practiced in the city of New York and won great renown as an orator and advocate. He affiliated with the Republican party, which he joined soon after its organization. He was the leading counsel employed for the defense of President Johnson in his trial for impeachment before the senate in April and May of 1868.   In July, 1868, Mr. Evarts was appointed attorney-general of the United States, and served until March 4, 1869. He was one of the three lawyers who were selected by President Grant in 1871 to defend the interests of the citizens of the United States before the tribunal of arbitration which met at Geneva in Switzerland to settle the controversy over the " Alabama Claims."   He was one of the most eloquent advocates in the United States, and many of his public addresses have been preserved and published. He was appointed secretary of state March 7, 1877, by President Hayes, and served during the Hayes administration. He was elected senator from the state of New York January 21, 1885, and at once took rank among the ablest statesmen in Congress, and the prominent part he took in the discussion of public questions gave him a national reputation.   JOHN WANAMAKER.—The life of this great merchant demonstrates the fact that the great secret of rising from the ranks is, to-day, as in the past ages, not so much the ability to make money, as to save it, or in other words, the ability to live well within one's income. Mr. Wanamaker was born in Philadelphia in 1838. He started out in life working in a brickyard for a mere pittance, and left that position to work in a book store as a clerk, where he earned the sum of $5.00 per month, and later on was in the employ of a clothier where he received twenty-five cents a week more.. He was only fifteen years of age at that time, but was a " money-getter " by instinct, and laid by a small sum for a possible rainy day. By strict attention to business, combined with natural ability, he was promoted many times, and at the age of twenty he had saved $2,000. After several months vacation in the south, he returned to Philadelphia and became a master brick mason, but this was too tiresome to the young man, and he opened up the " Oak Hall " clothing store in April, 1861, at Philadelphia. The capital of the firm was rather limited, but finally, after many discouragements, they laid the foundations of one of the largest business houses in the world. The establishment covers at the present writing some fourteen acres of floor space, and furnishes   90 - COMPENDIUM OF BIOGRAPHY.   employment for five thousand persons. Mr. Wanamaker was also a great church worker, and built a church that cost him $60,000, and he was superintendent of the Sunday-school, which had a membership of over three thousand children. He steadily refused to run for mayor or congress and the only public office that he ever held was that of postmaster-general, under the Harrison administration, and here he exhibited his extraordinary aptitude for comprehending the details of public business.   DAVID BENNETT HILL, a Democratic politician who gained a national reputation, was born August 29, 1843, at Havana, New York. He was educated at the academy of his native town, and removed to Elmira, New York, in 1862, where he studied law. He was admitted to the bar in 1864, in which year he was appointed city attorney. Mr. Hill soon gained a considerable practice, becoming prominent in his profession. He developed a taste for politics in which he began to take an active part in the different campaigns and became the recognized leader of the local Democracy. In 1870 he was elected a member of the assembly and was re-elected in 1872. While a member of this assembly he formed the acquaintance of Samuel J. Tilden, afterward governor of the state, who appointed Mr. Hill, W. M. Evarts and Judge Hand as a committee to provide a uniform charter for the different cities of the state. The pressure of professional engagements compelled him to decline to serve. In 1877 Mr. Hill was made chairman of the Democratic state convention at Albany, his election being due to the Tilden wing of the party, and he held the same position again in 1881. He served one term as alderman in Elmira, at the expiration of which term, in 1882, he was elected mayor of Elmira, and in September of the same year was nominated for lieutenant-governor on the Democratic state ticket. He was successful in the campaign and two years later, when Grover Cleveland was elected to the presidency, Mr. Hill succeeded to the governorship for the unexpired term. In 1885 he was elected governor for a full term of three years, at the end of which he was reelected, his term expiring in 1891, in which year he was elected United States senator. In the senate he became a conspicuous figure and gained a national reputation.   ALLEN G. THURMAN.—" The noblest Roman of them all " was the title by which Mr. Thurman was called by his compatriots of the Democracy. He was the greatest leader of the Democratic party in his day and held the esteem of all the people, regardless of their political creeds. Mr. Thurman was born November 13, 1813, at Lynchburg, Virginia, where he remained until he had attained the age of six years, when he moved to Ohio. He received an academic education and after graduating, took up the study of law, was admitted to the bar in 1835, and achieved a brilliant success in that line. In political life he was very successful, and his first office was that of representative of the state of Ohio in the twenty-ninth congress. He was elected judge of the supreme court of Ohio in 1851, and was chief justice of the same from 1854 to 1856. In 1867 he was the choice of the Democratic party of his state for governor, and was elected to the United States senate in 1869 to succeed Benjamin F. Wade, and was re-elected to the same position in 1874. He was a prominent figure in the senate, until the expiration of his service in 1881. Mr. Thurman was also one of the   COMPENDIUM OF BIOGRAPHY - 91   principal presidential possibilities in the Democratic convention held at St. Louis in 1876. In 1888 he was the Democratic nominee for vice-president on the ticket with Grover Cleveland, but was defeated. Allen Granberry Thurman died December 12, 1895, at Columbus, Ohio.   CHARLES FARRAR BROWNE, better known as " Artemus Ward," was born April 26, 1834, in the village of Waterford, Maine. He was thirteen years old at the time of his father's death, and about a year later he was apprenticed to John M. Rix, who published the " Coos County Democrat " at Lancaster, New Hampshire. Mr. Browne remained with him one year, when, hearing that his brother Cyrus was starting a paper at Norway, Maine, he left Mr. Rix and determined to get work on the new paper. He worked for his brother until the failure of the newspaper, and then went to Augusta, Maine, where he remained a few weeks and then removed to Skowhegan, and secured a position on the " Clarion." But either the climate or the work was not satisfactory to him, for one night he silently left the town and astonished his good mother by appearing unexpectedly at home. Mr. Browne then received some letters of recommendation to Messrs. Snow and Wilder, of Boston, at whose office Mrs. Partington's (B. P. Shillaber) " Carpet Bag " was printed, and he was engaged and remained there for three years. He then traveled westward in search of employment and got as far as Tiffin, Ohio, where he found employment in the office of the " Advertiser," and remained there some months when he proceeded to Toledo, Ohio, where he became one of the staff of the " Commercial, " which position he held until 1857. Mr. Browne next went Cleveland, Ohio, and became the local editor of the " Plain Dealer," and it was in the columns of this paper that he published his first articles and signed them " Artemus Ward." In 1860 he went to New York and became the editor of " Vanity Fair," but the idea of lecturing here seized him, and he was fully determined to make the trial. Mr. Browne brought out his lecture, "Babes in the Woods " at Clinton Hall, December 23, 1861, and in 1862 he published his first book entitled, " Artemus Ward; His Book." He attained great fame as a lecturer and his lectures were not confined to America, for he went to England in 1866, and became exceedingly popular, both as a lecturer and a contributor to " Punch." Mr. Browne lectured for the last time January 23, 1867. He died in Southampton, England, March 6, 1867.   THURLOW WEED, a noted journalist and politician, was born in Cairo, New York, November 15, 1797. He learned the printer's trade at the age of twelve years, and worked at this calling for several years in various villages in central New York. He served as quartermaster-sergeant during the war of 1812. In 1818 he established the " Agriculturist," at Norwich, New York, and became editor of the " Anti-Masonic Enquirer," at Rochester, in 1826. In the same year he was elected to the legislature and re-elected in 1830, when he located in Albany, New York, and there started the " Evening Journal," and conducted it in opposition to the Jackson administration and the nullification doctrines of Calhoun. He became an adroit party manager, and was instrumental in promoting the nominations of Harrison, Taylor and Scott for the presidency. In 1856 and in 1860 he threw his support to W. H. Seward, but when defeated in his object, he gave cordial support to   92 - COMPENDIUM OF BIOGRAPHY:   Fremont and Lincoln. Mr. Lincoln pre-veiled upon him to visit the various capitals of Europe, where he proved a valuable aid tc the administration in moulding the opinions of the statesmen of that continent favorable to the cause of the Union.   Mr. Weed's connection with the " Evening Journal " was severed in 1862, when he settled in New York, and for a time edited the " Commercial Advertiser." In 1868 he retired from active life. His " Letters from Europe and the West Indies," published in 1866, together with some interesting " Reminiscences," published in the " Atlantic Monthly," in 1870, an autobiography, and portions of an extensive correspondence will be of great value to writers of the political history of the United States. Mr. Weed died in New York, November 22, 1882.   WILLIAM COLLINS WHITNEY, one of the prominent Democratic politicians of the country and ex-secretary of the navy, was born July 5th, 1841, at Conway, Massachusetts, and received his education at Williston Seminary, East Hampton, Massachusetts. Later he attended Yale College, where he graduated in 1863, and entered the Harvard Law School, which he left in 1864. Beginning practice in New York city, he soon gained a reputation as an able lawyer. He made his first appearance in public affairs in 1871, when he was active in organizing a young men's Democratic club. In 1872 he was the recognized leader of the county Democracy and in 1875 was appointed corporation counsel for the city of New York. He resigned the office, 1882, to attend to personal interests and on March 5, 1885, he was appointed secretary of the navy by President Cleveland. Under his administration the navy of the United States rapidly rose in rank among the navies of the world. When he retired from office in 1889, the vessels of the United States navy designed and contracted for by him were five double-turreted monitors, two new armor-clads, the dynamite cruiser "Vesuvius," and five unarmored steel and iron. cruisers.   Mr. Whitney was the leader of the Cleveland forces in the national Democratic: convention of 1892.   EDWIN FORREST, the first and greatest American tragedian, was born in Philadelphia in 1806. His father was a tradesman, and some accounts state that he had marked out a mercantile career for his son, Edwin, while others claim that he had intended him for the ministry. His wonderful memory, his powers of mimicry and his strong musical voice, however, attracted attention before he was eleven years old, and at that age he made his first appearance on the stage. The costume in which he appeared was so ridiculous that he left the stage in a fit of anger amid a roar of laughter from the audience. This did not discourage him, however, and at the age of fourteen, after-some preliminary training in elocution, he appeared again, this time as Young Norvel, and gave indications of future greatness. Up to 1826 he played entirely with strolling companies through the south and west, but at that time he obtained an engagement at. the Bowery Theater in New York. From that time his fortune was made. His manager paid him $40 per night, and it is stated that he loaned Forrest to other houses from time to time at $200 per night. His great successes were Virginius, Damon, Othello, Coriolanus, William Tell, Spartacus and Lear. He made his first appearance in. London in 1836, and his 'success was unquestioned from the start. In 1845, on his   COMPENDIUM OF BIOGRAPHY - 93   second appearance in London, he became involved in a bitter rivalry with the great English actor, Macready, who had visited America two years before. The result was that Forrest was hissed from the stage, and it was charged that Macready had instigated the plot. Forrest's resentment was so bitter that he himself openly hissed Macready from his box a few nights later. In 1848 Macready again visited America at a time when American admiration and enthusiasm for Forrest had reached its height. Macready undertook to play at Astor Place Opera House in May, 1849, but was hooted off the stage. A few nights later Macready made a second attempt to play at the same house, this time under police protection. The house was filled with Macready's friends, but the vioolence of the mob outside stopped the play, and the actor barely escaped with his life. Upon reading the riot act the police and troops were assaulted with stones. The troops replied, first with blank cartridges, and then a volley of lead dispersed the mob, leaving thirty men dead or seriously wounded.   After this incident Forrest's popularity waned, until in 1855 he retired from the stage. He re-appeared in 1860, however, and probably the most remunerative period of his life was between that date and the close of the Civil war. His last appearance on the stage was at the Globe Theatre, Boston, in Richelieu, in April, 1872, his death occurring December 12 of that year.   NOAH PORTER, D. D., LL. D., was one of the most noted educators, authors and scientific writers of the United States. He was born December 14, 1811, at Farmington, Connecticut, graduated at Yale College in 1831, and was master of Hopkins Grammar School at New Haven in 1831-33. During 1833-35 he was a tutor at Yale, and at the same time was pursuing his theological studies, and became pastor of the Congregational church at New Milford, Connecticut, in April, 1836. Dr. Porter removed to Springfield, Massachusetts, in 1843, and was chosen professor of metaphysics and moral philosophy at Yale in 1846. He spent a year in Germany in the study of modern metaphysics in 1853— 54, and in 1871 he was elected president of Yale College. He resigned the presidency in 1885, but still remained professor of metaphysics and moral philosophy. He was the author of a number of works, among which are the following: " Historical Essay," written in commemoration of the 200th anniversary of the settlement of the town of Farmington; " Educational System of the Jesuits Compared;" " The Human Intellect," with an introduction upon psychology and the soul; " Books and Reading;" "American Colleges and the American Public;" " Elements of Intellectual Philosophy;" " The Science of Nature versus the Science of Man;" " Science and Sentiment;" " Elements of Moral Science." Dr. Porter was the principal editor of the revised edition of Webster's Dictionary in 1864, and contributed largely to religious reviews and periodicals. Dr. Porter's death occurred March 4, 1892, at New Haven, Connecticut.   JOHN TYLER, tenth president of the United States, was born in Charles City county, Virginia, March 29, 1790, and was the son of Judge John Tyler, one of the most distinguished men of his day.   When but twelve years of age young John Tyler entered William and Mary College, graduating from there in 1806. He took up the study of law and was admitted to the bar in 1809, when but nineteen years   94 - COMPENDIUM OF BIOGRAPHY.   of age. On attaining his majority in 1811 he was elected a member of the state legislature, and for five years held that position by the almost unanimous vote of his county. He was elected to congress in 1816, and served in that body for four years, after which for two years he represented his district again in the legislature of the state. While in congress, he opposed the United States bank, the protective policy and internal improvements by the United States government. 1825 saw Mr. Tyler governor of Virginia, but in 1827 he was chosen member of the United States senate, and held that office for nine years. He therein opposed the administration of Adams and the tariff bill of 1828, sympathized with the nullers of South Carolina and was the only senator who voted against the Force bill for the suppression of that state's insipient rebellion. He resigned his position as senator on account of a disagreement with the legislature of his state in relation to his censuring President Jackson. He retired to Williamsburg, Virginia, but being regarded as a martyr by the Whigs, whom, heretofore, he had always opposed, was supported by many of that party for the vice-presidency in 1836. He sat in the Virginia legislature as a Whig in 1839-40, and was a delegate to the convention of that party in 1839. This national convention nominated him for the second place on the ticket with General William H. H. Harrison, and he was elected vice-president in November, 1840. President Harrison dying one month after his inauguration, he was succeeded by John Tyler. He retained the cabinet chosen by his predecessor, and for a time moved in harmony with the Whig party. He finally instructed the secretary of the treasury, Thomas Ewing, to submit to congress a bill for the incorporation of a fiscal bank of the United States, which was passed by congress, but vetoed by the president on account of some amendments he considered unconstitutional. For this and other measures he was accused of treachery to his party, and deserted by his whole cabinet, except Daniel Webster. Things grew worse until he was abandoned by the Whig party formally, when Mr. Webster resigned. He was nominated at Baltimore, in May, 1844, at the Democratic convention, as their presidential candidate, but withdrew from the canvass, as he saw he had not succeeded in gaining the confidence of his old party. He then retired from politics until February, 1861, when he was made president of the abortive peace congress, which met in Washington. He shortly after renounced his allegiance to the United States and was elected a member of the Confederate congress. He died at Richmond, January 17, 1862. Mr. Tyler married, in 1813, Miss Letitia Christian, who died in 1842 at Washington. June 26, 1844, he contracted a second marriage, with Miss Julia Gardner, of New York.   COLLIS POTTER HUNTINGTON, one of the great men of his time and who has left his impress upon the history of our national development, was born October 22, 1821, at Harwinton, Connecticut. He received a common-school education and at the age of fourteen his spirit of getting along in the world mastered his educational propensities and his father's objections and he left school. He went to California in the early days and had opportunities which he handled masterfully. Others had the same opportunities but they did not have his brains nor his energy, and it was he who overcame obstacles and reaped the reward of his genius. Transcontinental railways   COMPENDIUM OF BIOGRAPHY - 95   were inevitable, but the realization of this masterful achievement would have been delayed to a much later day if there had been no Huntington. He associated himself with Messrs. Mark Hopkins, Leland Stanford, and Charles Crocker, and they furnished the money necessary for a survey across the Sierra Nevadas, secured a charter for the road, and raised, with the government's aid, money enough to construct and equip that railway, which at the time of its completion was a marvel of engineering and one of the wonders of the world. Mr. Huntington became president of the Southern Pacific railroad, vice-president of the Central Pacific; trustee of the Atlantic and Pacific Telegraph Company, and a director of the Occidental and Oriental Steamship Company, besides being identified with many other business enterprises of vast importance.   GEORGE A. CUSTER, a famous Indian fighter, was born in Ohio in 1840. He graduated at West Point in 1861, an served in the Civil war; was at Bull Run id 1861, and was in the Peninsular campaign, being one of General McClellan's aides-de, camp. He fought in the battles of South Mountain and Antietam in 1863, and was with General Stoneman on his famous cavalry raid. He was engaged in the battle of Gettysburg, and was there made brevet-major. In 1863 was appointed brigadier-general of volunteers. General Custer was in many skirmishes in central Virginia in 1863-64, and was present at the following battles of the Richmond campaign: Wilderness, Todd 's Tavern, Yellow Tavern; where hewasbrevetted lieutenant-colonel; Meadow Bridge, Haw's Shop, Cold Harbor, Trevillian Station. In the Shenandoah Valley 1864-65 he was brevetted colonel at Opequan Creek, and at Cedar Creek he was made brevet major-general for gallant conduct during the engagement. General Custer was in command of a cavalry division in the pursuit of Lee's army in 1865, and fought at Dinwiddie Court House, Five Forks, where he was made brevet brigadier-general; Sailors Creek and Appomattox, where he gained additional honors and was made brevet major-general, and was given the command of the cavalry in the _military division of the southwest and Gulf, in 1865. After the establishment of peace he went west on frontier duty and performed gallant and valuable service in the troubles with the Indians. He was killed in the massacre-on. the Little Big Horn river, South Dakota, June 25, 1876.   DANIEL WOLSEY VOORHEES, celebrated as " The Tall Sycamore of the Wabash," was born. September 26, 1827,. in Butler county, Ohio. When he was two months old his parents removed to Fountain county, Indiana. He grew to manhood on a farm, engaged in all the arduous work pertaining to rural life. In 1845 he entered. the Indiana Asbury University, now the De Pauw, from which he graduated in 1849. He took up the study of law at Crawfordsville, and in 1851 began the practice of his profession at Covington, Fountain county, Indiana. He became a law partner of United States Senator Hannegan, of Indiana, in 1852, and in 1856 he was an unsuccessful candidate for congress. In the following year he took up his residence in Terre Haute, Indiana. He was United States' district attorney for Indiana from 1857 until 1861, and he had during this period been elected to congress, in 1860. Mr. Voorhees was re-elected to congress in 1862 and 1864, but he was unsuccessful in the election of 1866. However, he was returned to con-   96 - COMPENDIUM OF BIOGRAPHY.   gress in 1868, where he remained until 1874, having been re-elected twice. In 1877 he was appointed United States senator from Indiana to fill a vacancy caused by the death of O. P. Morton, and at the end of the term was elected for the ensuing term, being reelected in 1885 and in 1891 to the same office. He served with distinction on many of the committees, and took a very prominent part in the discussion of all the important legislation of his time. His death occurred in August, 189   ALEXANDER GRAHAM BELL, famous as one of the inventors of the telephone, was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, March 3rd, 1847. He received his early education in the high school and later he attended the university, and was specially trained to follow his grandfather's profession, that of removing impediments of speech. He emigrated to the United States in 1872, and introduced into this country his father's invention of visible speech in the institutions for deaf-mutes. Later he was appointed professor of vocal physiology in the Boston University. He worked for many years during his leisure hours on his telephonic discovery, and finally perfected it and exhibited it publicly, before it had reached the high state of perfection to which he brought it. His first exhibition of it was at the Centennial Exhibition that was held in Philadelphia in 1876. Its success is now established throughout the civilized world. In 1882 Prof. Bell received a diploma and the decoration of the Legion of Honor from the Academy of Sciences of France.   WILLIAM HICKLING PRESCOTT, the justly celebrated historian and author, was a native of Salem, Massachusetts, and was born May 4, 1796. He was the son of Judge William Prescott and the grandson of the hero of Bunker Hill, Colonel William Prescott.   Our subject in 1808 removed with the family to Boston, in the schools of which city he received his early education. He entered Harvard College as a sophomore in 1811, having been prepared at the private classical college of Rev. Dr. J. S. J. Gardijner. The following year he received an inury in his left eye which made study through life a matter of difficulty. He graduated in 1814 with high honors in the classics and belle lettres. He spent several months on the Azores Islands, and later visited England, France and Italy, returning home in 1817. In June, 1818, he founded a social and literary club at Boston for which he edited " The Club Room," a periodical doomed to but a short life. May 4, 1820, he married Miss Susan Amory. He devoted several years after that event to a thorough study of ancient and modern history and literature. As the fruits of his labors he published several well written essays upon French and Italian poetry and romance in the " North American Review." January 19, 1826, he decided to take up his first great historical work, the " History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella." To this he gave the labor of ten years, publishing the same December 25, 1837. Although placed at the head of all American authors, so diffident was Prescott of his literary merit that although he had four copies of this work printed for his own convenience, he hesitated a long time before giving it to the public, and it was only by the solicitation of friends, especially of that talented Spanish scholar, George Ticknor, that he was induced to do so. Soon the volumes were translated into French, Italian, Dutch and German, and the work was recognized   COMPENDIUM OF BIOGRAPHY - 97   throughout the world as one of the most meritorious of historical compositions. In 1843 he published the " Conquest of Mexico," and in 1847 the " Conquest of Peru." Two years later there came from his pen a volume of Biographical and Critical Miscellanies." Going abroad in the summer of 1850, he was received with great distinction in the literary circles of London, Edinburgh, Paris, Antwerp and Brussels. Oxford University conferred the degree of D. C. L. upon him. In 1855 he issued two volume; of his "History of the Reign of Philip the Second," and a third in 1858. In the meantime he edited Robertson's " Charles the Fifth," adding a history of the life of that monarch after his abdication. Death cut short his work on the remaining volumes " Philip the Second," coming to him at Boston, Massachusetts, May 28, 1859.   OLIVER HAZARD PERRY, a noted American commodore, was born in South Kingston, Rhode Island, August 23, 1785. He saw his first service as a midshipman in the United States navy in April, 1799. He cruised with his father, Captain Christopher Raymond Perry, in the West Indies for about two years. In 1804 he was in the war against Tripoli, and was made lieutenant in 1807. At the opening of hostilities with Great Britain in 1812 he was given command of a fleet of gunboats on the Atlantic coast. At his request he was transferred, a year later, to Lake Ontario, where he served under Commodore Chauncey, and took an active part in the attack on Fort George. He was ordered to fit out a squadron on Lake Erie, which he did, building most of his vessels from the forests along the shore, and by the summer of 1813 he had a fleet of nine vessels at Presque Isle, now Erie, Pennsylvania. September l0th he attacked and captured the British fleet near Put-in-Bay, thus clearing the lake of hostile ships. His famous dispatch is part of his fame, " We have met the enemy, and they are ours." He co-operated with Gen. Harrison, and the success of the campaign in the northwest was largely due to his victory. The next year he was transferred to the Potomac, and assisted in the defense of Baltimore. After the war he was in constant service with the various squadrons in cruising in all parts of the world. He died of yellow fever on the Island of Trinidad, August 23, 1819. His remains were conveyed to Newport, and buried there, and an imposing obelisk was erected to his memory by the State of Rhode Island. A bronze statue was also erected in his honor, the unveiling taking place in 1885.   JOHN PAUL JONES, though a native of Scotland, was one of America's most noted fighters during the Revolutionary war. He was born July 6, 1747. His father was a gardener, but the young man soon became interested in a seafaring life and at the age of twelve he was apprenticed to a sea captain engaged in the American trade. His first voyage landed him in Virginia, where he had a brother who had settled there several years prior. The failure of the captain released young Jones from his apprenticeship bonds, and he was engaged as third mate of a vessel engaged in the slave trade. He abandoned this trade after a few years, from his own sense of disgrace. He took passage from Jamaica for Scotland in 1768, and on the voyage both the captain and the mate died and he was compelled to take command of the vessel for the remainder of the voyage. He ,soon after became master of the vessel. He returned to Virginia about 1773 to settle up the estate   98 - COMPENDIUM OF BIOGRAPHY.   of his brother, and at this time added the name " Jones," having previously been known as John Paul. He settled down in Virginia, but when the war broke out in 1775 he offered his services to congress and was appointed senior lieutenant of the flagship " Alfred," on which he hoisted the American flag with his own hands, the first vessel that had ever carried a flag of the new nation. He was afterward appointed to the command of the " Alfred," and later of the " Providence," in each of which vessels he did good service, as also in the " Ranger," to the command of which he was later appointed. The fight that made him famous, however, was that in which he captured the " Serapis," off the coast of Scotland. He was then in command of the " Bon Homme Richard," which had been fitted out for him by the French government and named by Jones in honor of Benjamin Franklin, or " Good. Man Richard," Franklin being author of the publication known as " Poor Richard's Almanac." The fight between the " Richard" and the "Serapis" lasted three hours, all of which time the vessels were at close range, and most of the time in actual contact. Jones' vessel was on fire several times, and early in the engagement two of his guns bursted, rendering the battery useless. Also an envious officer of the Alliance, one of Jones' own fleet, opened fire upon the " Richard " at a critical time, completely disabling the vessel. Jones continued the fight, in spite of counsels to surrender, and after dark the " Serapis " struck her colors, and was hastily boarded by Jones and his crew, while the " Richard " sank, bows first, after the wounded had been taken on board the " Serapis." Most of the other vessels of the fleet of which the " Serapis " was convoy, surrendered, and were taken with the " Serapis " to France, where Jones was received with greatest honors, and the king presented him with an elegant sword and the cross of the Order of Military Merit. Congress gave him a vote of thanks and made him commander of a new ship, the " America," but the vessel was afterward given to France and Jones never saw active sea service again. He came to America again, in 1787, after the close of the war, and was voted a gold medal by congress. He went to Russia and was appointed rear-admiral and rendered service of value against the Turks, but on account of personal enmity of the favorites of the emperor he was retired on a pension. Failing to collect this, he returned to France, where he died, July 18, 1792.   THOMAS MORAN, the well known painter of Rocky Mountain scenery, was born in Lancashire, England, in 1837. He came to America when a child, and showing artistic tastes, he was apprenticed to a wood engraver in Philadelphia. Three: years later he began landscape painting, and his style soon began to exhibit signs of genius. His first works were water-colors, and though without an instructor he began the use of oils, he soon found it necessary to visit Europe, where he gave particular attention to the works of Turner. He joined. the Yellowstone Park exploring expedition and visited the Rocky Mountains in 1871 and again in 1873, making numerous sketches of the scenery. The most noteworthy results were his " Grand Canon of the Yellowstone," and " The Chasm of the. Colorado," which were purchased by congress at $ 10,000 each„ the first of which is undoubtedly the finest landscape painting produced in this country. Mr. Moran, has subordinated art to nature, and the subjects he has chosen leave little ground for fault